91+ Tasted single blind at Southwold. This is a little simplistic on the nose with a touch of the old blackcurrant wine gums but fresh and lively. The palate has some dryness: austere and backward with compressed dusty black fruit, with liquorice and sous-bois on the finish. I think this will mellow with time – not showing its best now but it has the stuffing and structure to age beautifully. Drink 2012-2025.

Aromas of mineral blackberry and licorice lead to a full body with lots of racy tannins and a long flavorful finish. There's plenty of character with a polished refined style yet tannic. Best after 2011. 9830 cases made. –JS

Displaying a lightness in color, there is a mature, softness to the dark berries, with a perfume of earth, cherries, espresso and fresh herbs that feel round and soft in the berry, filled finish. This is not a wine to hold for further aging. Read more at:https://www.thewinecellarinsider.com/wine-tasting-note/?vintage=2005&wine=Chateau%20Haut-Bergey

Château Haut-Bergey was one of the most pleasant surprises of the entire 2005 tasting. Michel Rolland had consulted here for some years in the past, but the château owner had decided that he was dissatisfied with the direction of the winemaking under Monsieur Rolland’s consultancy, and he is happily no longer part of the equation at Haut-Bergey. The result in 2005 is one of the best wines made in the region of Pessac-Léognan that I tasted, and clearly one of the real sleepers to be looked out for in this vintage. The bouquet is deep, pure and classic, as the wine jumps from the glass in a blaze of cherries, red plums, tobacco, a lovely base of Graves soil tones and a judicious framing of vanillin oak. On the palate the wine is medium-full, focused and tangy, with lovely intensity of flavor, ripe tannins and good length and grip on the classically shaped finish. The wine is a blend of sixty-five percent cabernet sauvignon and thirty-five percent merlot and was raised in fifty percent new oak in 2005. Despite my comments about malo in barrel in the introduction, this wine has managed to show some fine elements of terroir despite having had its malolactic done in barrel. Lovely wine and a great value. (Drink between 2010-2035)

Charcoal, espresso roast, blackcurrants and spice are all present in this medium-bodied, nicely concentrated, relatively evolved and precocious Haut-Bergey, which is just now attaining its plateau of maturity. Soft tannins and an attractive plushness are followed by a wine capable of drinking well for another decade or more. - Robert M. Parker, Jr.