THE famous 5 VINTAGES

In recent memory, it has become an accepted likelihood that the vintage that comes around every tenth year and ends in the digit 5 will turn out to be somewhere between very good and great. Here, we examine the remarkable track record of (mostly) success going back over the last eight decades

- GARETH BIRCHLEY

In stark contrast to last year’s article damning the majority of the decade milestone vintages throughout the 1960s and ’70s, everyone celebrating a decennial anniversary in 2025 is of far greater fortune... well, almost everyone.

If I were to put down some of my cold, hard sterling on the outcome of 2025 being a successful Bordeaux vintage, history tells me that that’s as safe a bet as I could make in the world of wine. When we look back at the embarrassment of riches that the median vintage of each decade has given us, the ‘fives’ are almost always a contender for the finest vintage of the era.

2015

They say that Bordeaux no longer has good vintages and bad vintages, just easy vintages and difficult ones. While it would be churlish to suggest that 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 were all ‘difficult vintages’, they were certainly less lauded than the two vintages that preceded them. The Bordelais would have to wait no longer, as 2015 was deemed to be yet another ‘vintage of the century’.

A decade on, I would suggest that, in the pantheon of legends we've already witnessed this century, it sits behind the top-tier trio of 2000, 2010 and 2016 but alongside 2005 and 2009. The vintage is both generous and homogenous across quality levels and appellations. There is a seamlessness to the best wines and an approachability that you don’t find in some of the longer-term vintages.

The balance here is wonderful and so many of these wines give a huge amount of pleasure now and will do for decades to come. Château Margaux - 2015 the last vintage under the late, great Paul Pontallier - is the best of the firsts, while on the Right Bank, Château Lafleur is the wine of the vintage. See the ‘10 years on’ tasting (p50) for Châteaux Margaux, Lafleur and La Conseillante as my top 2015 picks.

2005