IT WAS predicted to be a classic vintage to rival the best postwar clarets and to rescue vineyards in decline. To the winemakers of Bordeaux, 2005 was going to be their saviour.

Heady comparisons with the great years of 1961 and 1982, which set new standards for the world’s finest and largest red wine region, have been rife.

But, while many vineyards will have the claret of the century on their hands, as many as a quarter of the region’s 14,000 wine producers could have bungled the opportunity by excessive use of high- tech equipment and clumsy techniques.

They had a textbook vintage, created by sunny days, cool nights and a long, disease-free growing season that culminated in a warm, dry harvest. But some producers could not resist the temptation to meddle with their wines and, in doing so, they have caused another setback for Bordeaux and the French wine industry.

Bordeaux has long been losing ground to cheaper New World wines with more accessible flavours and more comprehensible labels, and the vineyard owners had been counting on the 2005 vintage to rescue them.

With their sales dwindling, the value of their wine — and of their land — has been in freefall over the past three years. After a boom in the 1990s, which many vineyards and merchants sought to exploit with big price rises, Bordeaux is in the throes of an historic depression. Producers have even tried to limit the number of bottles brought to market in an attempt to force prices back up.

The Government’s solution was to recommend a move towards the methods that have been successful in the New World. These include putting oak chips in barrels and creating powerful groups to make and market the wine. To Gallic purists, this is sacrilege. But increasing numbers of producers, including those in Bordeaux, say that it makes sense.

Yet these attempts to give the wines some of the characteristics of the New World brands may be the root of the problem for those who have spoilt the 2005 vintage. The machine-mad, hi-tech winemakers may well have had their comeuppance. As Christian Moueix, the usually circumspect proprietor of Chateau Pétrus, put it: “It is a great, great vintage year . . . if winemakers had done things in a reasonable way, you could make wonderful wines.”

Among the mistakes made by the meddlers are leaving juice in contact with grape skins for very long periods, resulting in over-extracted wines. In some cases skin and pips have been left in contact with the juice for more almost three weeks during the fermentation process.

Producers have also tried to create a greater concentration of flavours by bleeding off juice, but in some places the result has become overbearing.

Time will tell which winemakers tripped up in 2005. The drawback for all will be prices starting at £2,000 a case for the top 50 wines — double last year’s price — when they are released this month. Sums like this will, alas, put the wines out of the league of traditional claret drinkers. What a pity. Man has both made and destroyed the 2005 vintage.

McQUITTY'S TOP 12

Château Calon-Ségur; Château Cheval-Blanc; Château Haut-Brion; Château Lafite; Château Margaux; Château Palmer; Château Latour; Château Léoville-Las-Cases; Château Montrose; Château Pichon Comtesse; Châ teau Le Pin; Vieux Château Certain

And three to avoid

Ducru-Beaucaillou; Château Pavie; Château Pavie Decesse

AN INDUSTRY IN DECLINE

• The price of a hectare of standard Bordeaux vines has slumped from almost €40,000 (£27,800) in the late 1990s to €20,000
• Many of the region’s 14,000 vineyards have been put up for sale over the past two decades to avoid inheritance and wealth taxes
• French wine accounts for 19 per cent of all wine sold in Britain, down from 45 per cent a decade ago. In the US it is 14 per cent, down from 26 per cent
• The French Government last year won permission from Brussels to distil 150 billion litres of unsold wine and to pay vineyards to tear out vines, including up to 10,000 hectares in Bordeaux

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