Signs of seepage under the capsule, but nothing untoward in the way the wine presented itself. Deep cherry red. The nose starts with tons of black cherry depth, but it’s primary and there’s not much else, perhaps a little high toned red fruit and mint – okay perhaps there is more… Not much fat but super concentration. The tannin is well behaved – no astringency – and good acidity. With food there seems a bit of a gap in the mid-palate, otherwise you don’t notice. Medium, medium-plus length. I enjoyed this wine plenty.
1998
1998 Mugneret Dr Georges Nuits St.Georges Les Chaignots
1998 Gouges Henri Nuits St.Georges Les Vaucrains
1998 Gros Michel Vosne-Romanée Clos des Réas
1998 Varoilles Gevrey-Chambertin Clos des Varoilles
Medium cherry red, a paler salmon shade at the rim. The nose is not so pronounced but has the high tones of the other ‘varoilles’ though with a much deeper spicy aspect and some chocolate. Good concentration to the fruit though seems more roasted and mouth wrapping, but fine, tannins. Good acidity and god good length. Again a nice wine.
1998 Potel Nicolas Pommard Les Epenots
Medium ruby colour. The nose has black and red cherry – shaded to black – with a sweet capuccino tail – still quite primary. The palate doesn’t show much fat, but there’s super acidity and deep, drying, velvetty tannins. Despite the lack of fat, the fruit seems amply concentrated. A good, above average length finish too. Restored my faith, the first two bottles from the case were corked!
1998 Gouges Henri Nuits St.Georges Les Pruliers
Medium-full cherry colour, still with purple hints. Nose starts with toasty oak which quickly blows off to reveal faint spice and earthy notes set against a background of high toned black cherry. This wine is quite fat with grainy tannins and long, fresh acidity. The predominantly cherry fruit is also nicely persistent and has good depth, though shows no complexity at this stage. This is a very good wine.
1998 Jadot Louis Vosne-Romanée Les Suchots
1998 Pavelot Jean-Marc et Hugues Savigny-lès-Beaune Les Dominode
Medium ruby colour, lighter at the rim. Nose has sweet medium toast oak obscuring some plummy fruit at the bottom and just a lift of raspberry on the end. For a vintage so badly maligned about ‘rough’ tannins, this is superbly smooth with velvet tannins. The acidity is long and lingering together with good density red fruits. This wine is very primary still, but very enjoyable for all that. Given a couple of hours, the acidity becomes a little astringent in the finish – no problem with food though. Still very good