2005 Chateau Pavie Saint Emilion

Saturated, deep ruby-red. Knockout nose combines blackberry, minerals, crushed rock, truffle, vanillin oak and flowers; showing none of the porty quality of the sample I tried last year. A hugely concentrated essence of a wine, offering an incredible combination of sweetness, vibrancy and precision of fruit, thanks to strong acidity and powerful underlying minerality. The chewy tannins are totally buffered by the wine's material on the explosive back end. This wine has it all! Compared to the Pavie-Decesse, which essentially comes from a single block of old vines on limestone, this wine has clearly benefited by being an assemblage of soil types, with fruit from the foot of the slope contributing texture and richness. The 2005 Pavie should easily last for three or four decades.