Critic Notes
The 2005 Echezeaux delivers ravishingly sweet, high-toned aromas of black raspberry, maraschino, marzipan, marmalade and iodine. It saturates the palate with sweet, ripe fruit and inner-mouth perfume, while introducing layers of fresh meat and shrimp-shell minerality. The texture is amazingly creamy and polished, and the long, refined finish adds an alluring hint of mocha. Superb saturation of ultra-ripe fruit but with freshness. remarkable concentration yet elegance, lift, indeed near weightlessness: this is 2005 at its best. The temptation to drink this in its early years will, I suspect, be irresistible ... let’s hope so anyway. It would be a shame for this beauty to be locked away as a collectible, even if it is capable of long-aging. Once the grapes in these fabled vineyards had reached a potential alcohol of 13%, reports Aubert de Villaine, he was ready to pick, because conditions had seldom been so conducive to perfect ripeness (including that of the stems). It was all done in a week, commencing with La Tache and Romanee Conti, and finishing on September 23 with Romanee-St.-Vivant (and Montrachet, on which I shall report at a future date). De Villaine intended to bottle in March or April by gravity in six-barrel lots, as has become general practice here over the past decade. David Schildknecht, Wine Advocate # 170
Score: 94-95/100The Wine Advocate
The 2005 Echezeaux delivers ravishingly sweet, high-toned aromas of black raspberry, maraschino, marzipan, marmalade and iodine. It saturates the palate with sweet, ripe fruit and inner-mouth perfume, while introducing layers of fresh meat and shrimp-shell minerality. The texture is amazingly creamy and polished, and the long, refined finish adds an alluring hint of mocha. Superb saturation of ultra-ripe fruit but with freshness; remarkable concentration yet elegance, lift, indeed near weightlessness: this is 2005 at its best. The temptation to drink this in its early years will, I suspect, be irresistible ... let’s hope so anyway. It would be a shame for this beauty to be locked away as a collectible, even if it is capable of long-aging. ||Once the grapes in these fabled vineyards had reached a potential alcohol of 13%, reports Aubert de Villaine, he was ready to pick, because conditions had seldom been so conducive to perfect ripeness (including that of the stems). It was all done in a week, commencing with La Tache and Romanee Conti, and finishing on September 23 with Romanee-St.-Vivant (and Montrachet, on which I shall report at a future date). De Villaine intended to bottle in March or April by gravity in six-barrel lots, as has become general practice here over the past decade. Wine Advocate.April, 2007
Score: 94-95/100David Schildknecht
The soaring nose of spicy cassis, black cherry and violets this displayed from cask has now become very reserved and brooding, merging into rich, full and utterly delicious flavors that possess a beguiling texture and unusually fine tannins compared to what I typically see with the Ech. This is a big wine by any measure with excellent mid-palate density and superb length. Really good stuff and as the value play in the DRC line-up, one to strongly consider because it surpasses its normal quality level by more than a fair margin in 2005. Allen Meadows, Burghound Jan01,2008
Score: 94-/100Allen Meadows, Burghound
