If I had to give two words of advice to lovers of French wine today, scouting in any price range, they would be “O” and “five”. The 2005 vintage seemed exceptional at the time virtually throughout France and especially in the classic regions of Bordeaux and Burgundy. Now that we can judge the wines in bottle, it continues to shine brilliantly.

In fact, 2005’s lustre is now all the greater since its perfect growing season has been followed by a series of increasingly difficult ones. Growers were challenged by 2006 (to be re-examined in detail next week), but 2007 and now 2008 have also presented them with much wetter and/or greyer summers than they would like, together with what anglophone viticulturists call “disease pressure” (ie rampant rot and mildew). In the old days they might not have tried so hard to control this, but nowadays they know they have to make the strictest of selections to survive, whatever the economic implications.