1998 Grands Echezeaux

Readers will already be aware that I absolutely adore the late Philippe Engel's wines, but the 1998 Grands Echézeaux was perhaps not his finest. The nose has a little brettanomyces and is too diffuse for my liking, with touches of Italian cured meats infusing the mulberry fruit. The palate is disjointed at first, though it does coalesce in the glass and delivers a lovely herbaceous, tertiary note towards the finish without ever troubling the stellar heights of say, the 1999 or 2002. I would drink bottles over the next 3-5 years.

Red-ruby. Smoky aromas of raspberry, coffee and red licorice. Higher-pitched and fresher in the mouth than the Echezeaux; intensely flavored and rather powerful, with solid underlying backbone. This is also tannic, but has the fat to support it. As with the '99s, this seems the best of Engel '98s.