Producer note: I met this trip with both Pierre and Christian Gouges (cousins, not brothers as is commonly assumed); Christian is responsible for the winemaking and Pierre tends the vines. They describe 2005 as "almost a perfect vintage that gave us truly fantastic raw materials. It's really rare to see grapes as fine as this with beautiful balance between the phenolic ripeness, sugars and acidities that gives the wines the same perfect balance. And it was an ideal harvest under dry and sunny but cool conditions and we could harvest at our leisure. And the cherry on the cake was that we had reasonably good yields at between 35 and 37 hl/ha with sugars in the 13% range and there was virtually nothing to sort as the crop was so clean. The grapes had thick skins and ripe seeds and gave up their colors easily. The malos were long and some of the wines didn't finish until September though we view this as a good sign. It really is a great vintage and there is no reason that the wines shouldn't fulfill their considerable promise." The Gouges cousins also reiterated their praise of the 2004s and my in-bottle impression support their enthusiasm. As to the '05s, the plan is to bottle without fining or filtration between December and March. (Robert Haas/Vineyard Brands, Birmingham, AL; Selection Becky Wasserman/Le Serbet, O.W. Loeb, Anthony Sarjeant, Howard Ripley, Uncorked Ltd, Seckford Wines, Avery's, Berry Brothers & Rudd and Heyman, Barwell and Rudd, UK).