Tasted at the Left Bank Bordeaux tasting at the home of FreeTheGrapes 1/19/2005.

This wine was decanted for six hours. This wine was the Wine Spectator #4 red wine of the year for 1998. It is currently available on wine searcher as low as $63 (less at auction).

This wine had an interesting nose of herbs and spices, coffee, smoke and leather, along with some black currants. Much fuller bodied than the Gartieux that preceded it, but still no more than medium bodied. A nice middle of raspberry, black currents and some meaty and leathery notes, leads to a medium length, somewhat oaky finish. A very nice wine, and realistically too young to experience all it has to give, but Suckling may have been smoking crack when he rated it 95. There is no way I would go higher than 89 points today, though it does have room for improvement. Still, I do not think it will ever develop into a classic wine, though it will be enjoyable.

Mike