1988 Le Montrachet

The 1988 Montrachet is incredibly bright and focused today, with a Riesling-like sense of deep minerality and nuance. Mint, white pepper, petrol, crushed rocks and white orchard fruits abound. This bottle, sourced from the domaine, is energetic, tense and tightly wound, much more so than I have seen in previous bottles. Today, the 1988 comes across as almost too young and in need of more time in bottle to flesh out and show the full breadth of its personality!

The 1988 Montrachet is gorgeous. This particular bottle is less exotic and more structured than some of the others I have had recently. Here it is the wine's sense of phenolics and overall structure that dominate over some of the more tropical, buttery notes I have seen in the past. Readers who have an opportunity to taste this magical elixir should not hesitate. At times the 1988 is quite extroverted, while in other moments it is much more buttoned up. Either way, the 1988 Montrachet dazzles from the very first taste. It should continue to drink well for at least another decade.

An exotic, totally viscerally thrilling wine, the 1988 Montrachet is simply off the charts. This isn’t wine. It is something else entirely. Rich, textured and beautifully resonant in the glass, the 1988 overwhelms the senses with its dazzling richness and honeyed, caressing personality. Orange jam, mint, butter, spice and mango notes abound in an extroverted, totally seductive Montrachet. I don’t want the 1988 to ever end, but, like all great bottles, it is polished off pretty quickly.