1998 Bordeaux en primeur Part II:
Tasting it personally in December 99

A funny thing happened on my way to Bordeaux last December.

Instead of descriptions like "very tannic" or "very tough" that I had been reading, I began hearing things that were far more pleasant. Words like "they are tasting lovely now", "it was much too early to taste in the Spring", "wine writers judged the vintage prematurely in March" and so on.

In a tasting of Pauillacs of 1998, I wrote down the word "majestic" for one of the wines that I felt was very impressive. It was a blind tasting so I didn't know what it was. It turned out to be Pichon Baron !

It tasted full of ripe berries and nowhere close to being "hard" the way it was described earlier by the critics. I was surprised so much so that I asked the Chateau if they could supply another bottle for me to take it to a tasting the following day with three other veteran tasters and try it out again along with close to forty wines of 1998. We had identical results as the previous day !

The Lynch Bages was surprisingly sweet so I said, after reading so much about the "sexy" St. Emilions, that it should be called the "sexy Pauillac". The Grand Puy Lacoste was lovely, the Pontet Canet was a surprise and Pichon Lalande was its beautiful elegant self.

And the St. Juliens were very good to outstanding, particularly Leoville Barton which was absolutely lovely and perfectly balanced . And even the normally tough St. Estephes like Cos d'Estournel and Montrose, while not at the same level as their stellar 1996, showed excellent balance. The Calon Segur was so rounded out that I joked to my fellow tasters that it qualify as a Burgundy!

The star of the left bank turned out to be Lafite (see below).

As to my worry based on what I had read from the earlier critics that this vintage will be another tannic and angular 1975, Paul Pontallier of Chateau Margaux dismissed it by saying " Bipin, I promise you there will never again be a 1975 Bordeaux." He added, "We are a new generation of wine makers and we have learned a lot from the past mistakes".

In 1975 the grapes were not ripe when they were picked . That definitely did not happen in 1998 (nor was there any rot). With the technical and technological advances today, and the severe selections they now make, the wines from the two vintages have hardly any resemblance according to him and everyone I spoke to.

If there is one slight shortcoming it is that the 1998s in the left bank are a tad less complex than 1996 which to me is still a greater vintage in that region. For example, Lafite and Margaux would be in the (98,100) point category in 1996 but not in 1998.

On the right bank the wines are quite marvelous on the whole. True, there is a tannic inner core but there is enough good stuff surrounding it that with patience we will have some extraordinary wines.

There were many outstanding Pomerols. One good news is that Clinet, one of the favorites of the Pomerol-lovers, which received lukewarm notes in March has come around beautifully.

Vieux Chateau Certan was excellent. However, because of the larger than normal proportion of merlot the wine is a bit too monolithic, not as complex as the stunning 1996 I tasted there which had the traditional proportion of merlot and cabernet franc. After all, the old vintages of this wine like 1947, 1948, 1949 were great from this chateau because of this "traditional" cepage.

Wonderful wines were made also in St. Emilion like Cheval Blanc (see below), Figeac, Canon and l'Angelus and others.

Among the new (and some not so new) St. Emilion, l'Hermitage was very impressive. On the other hand, there were a few I found to be overly extracted, some tasting almost like "late harvest zinfandel" !

I, frankly, failed to see the point in manipulating wines like that. Sure, it impresses a few wine writers but they should be thinking more about the long-term prospects for their wines.

Ch. Cheval Blanc. This is quite an amazing wine. It is totally exquisite with incredibly silky, velvety texture. And underneath all that elegance there are ripe berries one can almost chew on. Its taste lingers on for a remarkably long time.

Ch. L'Eglise Clinet. In the midst of a long array of bottles we were tasting, this wine stopped all of us dead in our tracks with complete astonishment because it was so incredibly good. I wrote "flawless". The next word I wrote "ethereal". That about summed it up. After I returned home I looked for older vintages of this chateau in my cellar and noticed I had the extraordinary 1945 and a few other vintages I had tasted previously. But I also had 3 bottles of 1959 which I had never tasted before. I pulled one out and included it in a tasting with my friends of some excellent 59s, 49s etc. It stole the show.

Ch. Petrus. Knowing how great 1975 Petrus is, in spite of all the problems of that vintage, I asked myself "suppose all those problems had been solved what would I get?." The answer is mind boggling because that is how the 1998 is. It is quite tannic but with an enormous concentration of fruit underneath and a remarkably long length. The nose is all licorice, cassis, and spices. Christian Moueix told me he considers this to be a "great" Petrus, the best since 1989. I have always considered the 1989 to be the best vintage since 1961, better than 1990 or 1982, so this is an enormous compliment. Differently structured than 1989, which is rounder and has more "volume", the 1998 is tighter and longer.

Ch Haut Brion. Once again Haut Brion has come through to make a beautifully elegant wine, perfectly balanced without any rough edges and with a tremendous depth of fruit. Different from the extraordinary 1989 which is clearly still the greatest Haut Brion since 1961, this is a more elegant version of it.

Ch.Lafite. Another great effort by the Chateau. Sensational nose of violets. Great elegance and finesse and length. It has all the things one has come to expect from Lafite.

Ch.Trotanoy. Pure licorice on the nose, this wine has made a complete comeback to its original glorious self after long years of slump since the famous 1970 and 1971 . Quite tannic but it also has an enormous amount of sweetness underneath.

Ch. Lafleur. Some cassis on the nose and, as usual, a leathery texture. But the leather is a tiny bit "fat" and thank God for that! Knowing the incredibly tannic 1975 and the 1961 (which came around only after 30 years, to become an extraordinary wine) this is a bit different at this stage. It has an enormous concentration of fruit.

If the above seven wines were served blind, I think I could pick them out without too much effort. How ? Because they are all so totally different in character from each other, each wine very faithful to its terroir and to its totally unique style.

Because of logistical and time constraints I could not taste many chateaux I would have wanted to taste like Ausone, Latour, Leoville Lascases, and Valandraud.

I have divided the outstanding wines (90-100) into five groups with ascending number of stars, each corresponding to specific range of points with a spread of 2 points. Those scoring less than 90 are categorized as "v.g." (very good), "g" (good), etc.

In the next issue I will elaborate at length the philosophy and reasoning behind this type of scoring system.