Wine Advisor
Canon La Gaffeliere 2005
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Description
Tasting notes
Reviewed by: Robert M. Parker, Jr.
This fragrant, lush, seductive wine offers up plum, Christmas spices and crème de cassis. This dense garnet/purple wine also has loads of blackcurrant and black cherry fruit, terrific aromatics, a full-bodied mouthfeel, beautiful purity, texture, and a long, long finish. Once again, the Comte von Neipperg and his winemaking consultant Stéphane Derenoncourt have hit a home run in this vintage. This beauty is approachable, if not drinkable already, and should continue to evolve for 10-15 years.
Reviewed by: Neal Martin
Tasted at Chateau Branaire-Ducru. Repeating its performance in Southwold, it has that intense, cassis, iodine-tinged nose with hints of violets (no brett this time though) The palate is low in acidity, super-smooth and ripe with a dense, tarry, animally finish with great length. This has some way to go, but it is certainly realising its promise in barrel and perhaps surpassing it? This would be my choice for a Chateau Canon-la Gaffeliere to lay down long-term. Drink 2014-2025. Tasted April 2009.
Reviewed by: Neal Martin
Lovely juicy red berries on the nose: raspberry coulis, wild strawberry, and a touch of iodine. Superb delineation. The palate is well-balanced, fine tannins, good attack on the entry, drawing back to reveal ripe black fruits with a delicate savoury touch. Grippy tannins in the finish. Moderate length. Perhaps just lacking it little “punch” on the finish but there is no sign of the astringency it showed in barrel. A great ’05.Tasted April 2008.
Reviewed by: Robert M. Parker, Jr.
This is one of the strongest efforts from Canon-La-Gaffeliere since their spectacular 1990. Tiny yields of 30 hectoliters per hectare and a final blend of 55% Merlot, 35% Cabernet Franc, and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon have resulted in a wine of exceptional complexity. Aromas of roasted herbs, spice box, sweet and sour cherries, licorice, incense, and black fruits are followed by a wine with tremendous opulence, full body, and moderately high but sweet tannin. Excellent acidity gives precision to this big, but impeccably well-balanced, pure 2005. A brilliant effort, it should be drinkable within 3-4 years of bottling, and will keep for two decades.
Reviewed by: Neal Martin
An attractive cassis and black cherry nose. Very pure and modern in style. The palate has great weight with opulent rounded black fruits. Very tannic with a touch of burnt toast on the finish. A touch of astringency on the finish just spoils would could be an outstanding wine. Tasted April 2006.
Reviewed by: Robert M. Parker, Jr.
The qualitative equal of this estate’s top-notch 2000, 1998, and 1990, the 2005 Canon-La-Gaffeliere is a stunning effort from proprietor Stephan von Neipperg. A blend of 55% Merlot, 40% Cabernet Franc, and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon, it possesses complex, fragrant aromas of spice box, black currants, sweet cherries, and licorice. Dense, opulent, full-bodied, pure, and layered, it is an impressively endowed St.-Emilion that should evolve slowly, and last for 15 or more years.
Reviewed by: Robert M. Parker, Jr.
For opulence, decadence, and sexiness, this 2005 is hard to resist. One of the vintage’s most flamboyant efforts, it is a gorgeous blend of 55% Merlot, 35% Cabernet Franc, and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon. With a stunningly exotic nose of espresso roast, a juicy meat and herb concoction, spice box, chocolate, incense, and copious quantities of sweet, ripe black cherry and blackberry fruit, this full-throttle St.-Emilion exhibits good structure (because of the vintage’s sound acid levels) and high, but velvety tannin. It is a brilliant effort from proprietor Stephan von Neipperg. I would not discount its aging potential as the 1990, which I thought would have a short aging curve, is still going strong at age 18. The 2005 should easily last 20-25 years. Anticipated maturity: 2012-2030.
Reviewed by: Neal Martin
The Château Canon-la-Gaffelière 2005 has a gorgeous, voluptuous bouquet with small dark cherries, red plum, star anis and cassis. There is an inviting warmth to this nose, quite audacious but never over-powering. The palate is medium-bodied with a fine line of acidity. This is extremely well balanced, very pure and refined with hints of Asian spice and white pepper furnishing the long finish. There is a sense of completeness to this Saint Emilion and it will continue to give pleasure for 15 or 20 years, maybe longer.
Reviewed by: Neal Martin
Tasted single blind at Southwold. Just a touch of brett on the red-berried nose; a little shoe-polish and iodine intertwined with the dark plumy fruit. It sports a sweet, viscous entry, low acidity, dark plum, chocolate and a touch of savoury fruit towards the finish. This is becoming a hedonistic wine with an animally, almost Northern Rhone-like finish. Moderate length. Drink 2012-2020+ Tasted January 2009.
Reviewed by: Antonio Galloni
The 2005 Canon La Gaffelière is a big wine. Inky red fruit, mocha, espresso, licorice, dried flowers, mint and tobacco all flesh out in the glass. Although the 2005 possesses remarkable density, the aromatics seem to be travelling on a faster trajectory. That said, the cork on this bottle was not perfect. Readers who own the 2005 will want to check in on it.
Reviewed by: Stephen Tanzer
Medium red. Reticent aromas of red fruits, coffee, roasted meat and mocha; a bit low-toned today. Superripe, sweet and densely packed; large-scaled for a wine from this property but quite closed today, hinting at an almost roasted ripeness. Atypically deep cabernet franc here. Finishes with broad tannins and lovely floral lift, leaving behind a captivating violet perfume in the empty glass. Very unevolved wine, in need of a decade of patience and likely to merit a higher score at its peak.
Reviewed by: Stephen Tanzer
Bright, full ruby-red. Knockout nose offers black raspberry, coffee, minerals, flowers, tobacco and nutty oak. Densely packed and vibrant, with terrific energy to its tightly coiled flavors of dark fruits and minerals. Here, too, the quality of the cabernet franc is high. Finishes strong and very long, with an explosion of dark fruits and flowers. An outstanding vintage for this property.
Reviewed by: Stephen Tanzer
(a blend of 55% merlot, 35% cabernet franc and 10% cabernet sauvignon) Medium ruby-red. Lovely lift to the aromas of black raspberry, chocolate and minerals. Sweet, lush and smooth, with excellent density and fine-grained texture. Very complex, elegantly styled wine that already shows enticing inner-mouth aromatic character. Impressively broad and long on the back end, with the tannins dusting the teeth.
About the Producer
Château Canon La Gaffelière is a well-regarded Premier Grand Cru Classé wine estate in the Saint-Émilion region of northeastern Bordeaux. The château is known for the elegance and finesse of its wines as much as it is for its owner: Count Stephan von Neipperg. The estate and château lies just south of Saint-Émilion town and was promoted to Premier Grand Cru Classé 2012. Canon La Gaffelière's 19.5-hectare (48-acre) vineyard is a mix of clay-limestone and clay-sand soils, with predominantly sandy topsoils. These characteristics are well-suited to the grape varieties planted here with the vineyards composed of 55 percent Merlot, 40 percent Cabernet Franc and 5 percent Cabernet Sauvignon. At harvest, the grapes are hand-harvested and destemmed without crushing, then fermented in temperature-controlled wooden vats. They are then aged in mostly new oak barrels for up to 20 months. The Canon La Gaffelière estate began as two separate holdings in the 19th Century: Canon Boitard and La Gaffelière Boitard. They were eventually combined, and then acquired by the Von Neipperg family in 1971. Current proprietor Count Stephan von Neipperg also owns La Mondotte, Clos de L'Oratoire and Château Peyreau in Saint-Émilion, plus a handful of other estates around Bordeaux.
1971(1)1981(1)1982(1)1990(1)1996(1)1999(1)2000(4)2001(2)2004(1)
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