WineLovers Discussion Group

Best of my three bottles. This was a lovely bottle of mature Napa Cabernet! Warm, truffle-y, earthy and leathery fruit with beautiful notes of cassis and raspberry. Soft and smooth. What a beautiful bottle of wine.

Dang it. I really regret not picking some of these up when there were available last year. Price was fairly good too since selling 1998s cabs is not all that easy these days.

I have really enjoyed the 1998s I have tried from wineries that focus on "balance" and ageability.

Clos du Val comes to mind.

I have one more bottle of "Kronos" vineyard left. Will definitely be trying it soon.

C'mon guys this is familiar. Many wineries just weren't able to get grapes picked that hadn't been affected by some bad weather around harvest time. In almost all "bad" vintages some wineries are lucky enough to obtain good fruit. There was a great deal of "bad" wine in 1998 here & Sonoma.

Lou Kessler wrote:C'mon guys this is familiar. Many wineries just weren't able to get grapes picked that hadn't been affected by some bad weather around harvest time. In almost all "bad" vintages some wineries are lucky enough to obtain good fruit. There was a great deal of "bad" wine in 1998 here & Sonoma.

Sure, Lou, but the "lucky" wineries aren't randomly distributed: certain conscientious growers can make good wine, year in and year out. '98s from those wineries won't taste like '99s or '97s, but they'll still be good and might, to people like Brian and myself, be tastier than those made in riper years. Kermit Lynch talks about that in his "Adventures on the Wine Route."

Mark Lipton

Mark Lipton wrote:

Lou Kessler wrote:C'mon guys this is familiar. Many wineries just weren't able to get grapes picked that hadn't been affected by some bad weather around harvest time. In almost all "bad" vintages some wineries are lucky enough to obtain good fruit. There was a great deal of "bad" wine in 1998 here & Sonoma.

Sure, Lou, but the "lucky" wineries aren't randomly distributed: certain conscientious growers can make good wine, year in and year out. '98s from those wineries won't taste like '99s or '97s, but they'll still be good and might, to people like Brian and myself, be tastier than those made in riper years. Kermit Lynch talks about that in his "Adventures on the Wine Route."

Mark Lipton

Some vineyards ripen earlier than others, some people guess wrong and think the sun will come out again and soon. Once the juice is very diluted even "God" has a problem making good wine. Some of the "best" wineries, my kind, didn't make good wine in 1998. Hollow in the middle short finishes.

Couple months ago my SOBER group had a blind flight that turned out to be 97 and 98 Corison Kronos. Both very good wines, and I rated equally.