Otto Nieminen wrote:....because they are more typical. Take for example Bordeaux. Why do we call 82, 90 and 00 great vintages because they don't taste like Bordeaux? I'll hereby nominate 83, 88 and 01 as the new great trio!
Hogwash. What is typical? Look at the '70s: 1970 was excellent, '71-'74 largely fogettable, '75 controversial, '76 & '77 largely forgettable, '78 good but no world beater, '79 different style from '78 but similar comment.
Otto, you are picking a limited subset of vintages and calling them atypical. Well complete washouts are just as atypical. Your "typical" vintages are just as typical.
I'm no 2003 fan (though Branaire and Sociando are among a select few wines I have tasted, bought and am cellaring with great anticipation), and pricing has pretty much shut me out of 2005, but 2000 has some great wines. Now '01 has some real gems as well (so does '02 by the way), but they will cellar and drink differently (shorter and sooner to be precise, though '02 will need lots of time).
Taking this to another regions, if we look at the '80s in Germany, '80-'82 were varying degrees of mediocre, '83 great but controversial and inconsistent, '84 lousy, '85 very good, '86 so-so, '87 lousy and '88-'90 excellent to varying degrees and in different styles. What is typical? Translating to more recent vintages, is '04 typical? Is '02 typical? I think to varying degrees both are typical, but '01 is better despite being a "great" vintage (overall...yes some '02s and '04s are better, but go with the concept here). '03 is just plain weird. It's too soon to declare '05 anything other than ripe.
So I do not in any way buy your premise, except that you like less ripe vintages. There's nothing more typical about them.