I opened my 5th of six magnums of 2005 Tete Cuvee Prestige a couple of weeks ago and came up with this (posted in Cellar Tracker) - a bit long-winded, but FWIW:
"This note is for the bottle opened on 11/7/21. A magnum decanted into 375 ml bottles and imbibed over several days. I've been trying to push the limits of Beaujolais age-worthiness, having discovered that cru Beaujolais from skilled vignerons evolves in interesting and often beneficial ways. This bottle is one of the longest-held in my cellar, tho, given its pedigree, vintage, and format, I doubt it should be considered really old.
"The wine takes a period of interaction with air to show its flavor composition, which is mostly typical red berry-cherry, still pretty heavily structured by drying, sandy tannins. So far, so good, but the wine also has a gamey (no pun intended) sub-flavor that's distracting and unpleasant. It doesn't ruin the wine, but it's not an asset. Over the course of the bottle, I learned that this quality can be minimized by serving the wine close to refrigerator temperature, which also brightens its fruit flavors and moderates the intrusive effect of the tannins.
"Overall, a very good wine that has evolved from youthful Beaujolais, fruit-rich brashness to a slightly distinguished, slightly aristocratic dry red, retaining a vestige of churlish bad manners (the gamey flavor - pardon the tortured metaphor). Best served very cool. It's not fragile after opening, but it's not especially robust, either - the wine losing much of its pith by the fourth half bottle. I interpret this developmental profile as indicating that this wine is well into its plateau of maturity and unlikely to improve from here. Wiser Beaujolais-philes who disagree are invited to comment, I'd love hear from them."
By the last glass, I was heartily sick of the gamey flavor; discouraging, as I've really like my previous bottles.
