Chateau Pavie Macquin 2005

Professional Ratings

• 98 Jeb Dunnuck
  A blend of 70% Merlot, 25% Cabernet Franc, and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon, from a cool limestone terroir on the plateau, the 2005 Château Pavie Macquin is extraordinary juice, and the finest vintage of this cuvee I’ve ever tasted. Sporting a saturated purple color as well as an off the hook bouquet of crème de cassis, blackberries, smoked earth, chocolate, and Asian spices, with a sensational sense of minerality developing with time in the glass. Deep, full-bodied, massively concentrated, and multi-dimensional, it’s just now at the early stages of its drinking plateau and it will probably keep for another 2-3 decades. Count yourself lucky if you have bottles of this in the cellar!
• 96 Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
  Inky bluish/purple in color, Pavie Macquin produced a prodigious effort from St.-Emilion in 2005. Its crushed, chalky rock minerality, massive body, and high tannin make for a wine to forget for another decade. Super-loaded, concentrated and powerful, this wine should turn out great, but patience will be required. The blackberry and cassis fruit are there in abundance, but so is a massive structure. Anticipated maturity: 2020-2035. Rating: 96+
• 96 Wine Spectator
  Terrifically dense, with layers of plum sauce, melted red licorice, raspberry coulis and blackberry pâte de fruit coursing along, but never top-heavy, as alluring floral and incense notes hang in the background. The long, mineral-driven finish keeps everything firmly grounded. Approachable now, but has a ways to go.—Non-blind Pavie Macquin vertical (December 2014). Best from 2019 through 2029.
• 94 Wine Enthusiast
  This chateau deserved its promotion to Premier Grand Cru in 2006. Nicolas Thienpont has made a wonderfully firm, dense wine that piles rich fruit upon tannin upon rich fruit, while still preserving considerable elegance. The after effect is of a solid wine, powerful, long-lasting.
  Cellar Selection
• 94 Wine & Spirits
  A grand wine, this is about as heady as Pavie-Macquin gets. It feels supple, sophisticated and so fattened with robust black cherry fruit that it's about to burst. But instead the fruit density remains balanced, mouthwatering in its floral tannins that hint at lavender and mint. Complex and profound, yet still easy to enjoy, this wine will give tremendous pleasure for decades to come.