1998 Château Rauzan-Ségla

The 1998 Rauzan-Ségla is a blend of 59% Cabernet Sauvignon and 41% Merlot. Medium to deep garnet-brick colored, it has a lovely nose of baked plums, dried cranberries, mulberries and licorice with nuances of leather, baking spices and dusty soil. The medium-bodied palate still maintains a surprising amount of fruit with fine-grained tannins and seamless freshness, finishing with great length. While this is not a particularly complex Rauzan-Ségla, it is an outstanding example. It's unlikely to improve much, yet it is maturing slowly and should offer collectors a lot of joy over the next 15 years+.

The 1998 Rauzan-Ségla has slightly weedy in character, but also offers plenty of cedary spice, impressive sweetness of fruit, medium body, and a charming, balanced texture on the palate. Made from 65% Cabernet Sauvignon and 35% Merlot, it’s a regal, rounded, fully mature old girl that has plenty of character. It’s not getting any better, yet I don’t see it falling off a cliff any time soon either. I’d line up bottles for drinking any time over the coming decade or so.

The 1998 Rauzan-Ségla shows similarly to the bottle opened at the château during my 20-year on tastings a few weeks earlier. This was picked from 24 September until 8 October. It has an atypically brash and quite opulent bouquet, a touch more glycerin than I expected, perhaps the one vintage that doffs its cap to the New World. The palate is medium-bodied with grainy tannin, a fine line of acidity, and quite structured. Impressive weight in the mouth, and tarry black fruit wash over the senses towards the bravura of a finish. It is a wine that wants to impress and that it certainly does in what was a modest growing season. Tasted at the Rauzan-Ségla vertical at the château.