The Tb points given to this wine are the world’s most valid and most up-to-date evaluation of the quality of the wine. Tastingbook points are formed by the Tastingbook algorithm which takes into account the wine ratings of the world's 50 best-known professional wine critics, wine ratings by thousands of tastingbook’s professionals and users, the generally recognised vintage quality and reputation of the vineyard and winery. Wine needs at least five professional ratings to get the Tb score. Tastingbook.com is the world's largest wine information service which is an unbiased, non-commercial and free for everyone.
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Wine Description
The Story
The Gruaud Larose terroir is truly remarkable and unique. It is a single vineyard of 80 hectares with gravels from the Gironde estuary, dating from the Mindel Ist and Mindel IInd (about 700 000 years ago), and that in some places are over 18 feet deep. The soil is very poor and sandy, and therefore does not hold water. Drainage is one of the major concerns of a conscientious vine-grower.
It is also an important factor at Gruaud Larose where nineteenth-century underground pottery drains have been found. The natural draining system due to the poor quality of soils, from the hot and dry summers, and mostly from their position on the highest plateau of Saint-Julien - 18 metres high from the sea level -, constantly exposed to the north and west winds, favour both soil and optimum maturity for grapes. In fact, Nature has given here a magical aspect to this unique estate vineyard.
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Wine Information
No vintage in the post-World War era has a reputation as great as 1945. Its legendary status is well deserved based solely on the quality of the wines, but the fact that it is the “victory” vintage following World War II only adds to its luster. 1945 was a remarkably good vintage for virtually every wine region in the world, but it was especially great for Claret. Interestingly, the harvest in Bordeaux got underway on September 13th, the same date as the 1982 harvest began exactly 37 years later.
The top reds of Bordeaux started out with massive levels of tannin and took decades to develop. Due to the high concentration of fruit and tannin levels, many of the wines still show beautifully today.
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Vintage 1945
The world’s best wine vintage – 1947 or 1945? Tastingbook tasted all the best wines from these two great vintages.
If the wine producers from different regions were asked to name the best vintages from their winemaking history, the most would name 1947 or 1945 as one of the great ones. If we then compared them together there would be most likely only one vintage that the most if not every producer had named on list – 1947.
We wanted to test that theory and we tasted them agains each other and the winner was 1947 – by far.
The vintage 1947 was a magical vintage. It remains in the history as one of the only vintages that all well-established quality wine regions in the world were blessed with superb weather conditions. The heat waves were experienced all around the world and for instance the whole Europe was bating under scorching sun and experiencing a heat wave during the summer. This resulted very concentrated and highly ripe grapes. The producers had challenges to handle the very ripe grapes with high sugar levels as there was a constant risk of bacterial contamination in less hygenic cellars that had no artifical cooling systems. As there was no technology to use, many invoked on huge blocks of ice to cool the room temperautre down and even putting ice in their fermentation tanks.
This vintage has proven to yield very long lasting wines from all around the world. The wines are marked with sweet and ripe fruit character and warming alcohol. Due to the poorly hygenic winemaking facilities, many of the wines show volatile characters. Some might find this as a fault, but for many mature wine lovers this feature is even a preferred character. However, when buying the wines from this vintage, one should be aware that there is high level of bottle variations and the risk of having highly volatile wines is remarkably high.
1945 was an exceptional year throughout the whole France, from Côte-Rôtie to Bordeaux. Due to the warm and dry conditions, the grapes were very concentrated and produced an extraordinary, but unfortunately small yield. The harvest in 1945 was an early harvest, which started on the same date as 1982, September 13. The wines began life with massive levels of tannin and took quite a few decades to develop. Due to the high tannin levels, many of the wines still show well today.
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Recommended glass shape
Average Bottle Price
| 2015 | 2010 | 2005 | 2000 | 1995 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 290€ +19.8% | 1 077€ +36.3% | 790€ +80.0% | 439€ +16.4% | 377€ |
This data comes from the FINE Auction Index, a composite of average prices for wines sold at commercial auctions in 20 countries. The average prices from each year have been collected since 1990. This chart plots the index value of the average price of the wines.
