1998 Château Haut-Brion, Pessac-Léognan, Bordeaux

Agreeably approachable, with plump, plummy fruit aromas and accents of blackberry, spice and smoke. The texture is rich and round, with a supple, fleshy feel and suave tannins supporting the wine without astringency. The wine drinks well now while still seeming youthful and fresh, and there is enough substance to suggest that it will age admirably for years to come. There is a strong dominance of Merlot in the blend 59%), and the wine aged in 77% new oak casks until bottling in August of 2000.

Drink 2023 - 2045

This is really classic in style with incredible depth and power. Muscular and amazing, it is full-bodied yet tight and agile. So complex. It shows iodine, oyster, stone, and mint aromas and flavors. It's rich and flavorful and at the same time fresh and racy. A modern classic. 

Drink or hold. Decant this one or two hours in advance.

Sumptuous wine made from 60% Merlot served at the château. Mellow, suave, long and polished. Glorious bottle. Great balance. Saw me nicely on to the Bordeaux-Carcassonne train that afternoon.

Drink 2010 - 2025

Still incredibly youthful and sporting a lot of fruit, the deep garnet-brick coloured 1998 Haut-Brion sashays out of the glass with flamboyant red and black fruits, followed by a train of cassis, blueberry pie and chocolate box notions plus accents of iron ore, dried lavender and underbrush. Medium to full-bodied, the palate is wonderfully rich and decadently seductive in its generosity of fruit and velvety texture, offering seamless freshness and finishing with epic length and compelling minerality. Oh so delicious right now, with careful cellaring it should continue to excite through 2045 and beyond.

Drink 2018 - 2045

The 1998 Haut Brion has long been a favourite vintage of mine and has been consumed with pleasure several times. Now, at 20 years of age, I feel it is one step ahead of the 1998 La Mission: there is great fruit intensity with almost precocious blackberry, raspberry coulis, pastilles, tobacco and hints of olive. It has exquisite delineation and focus.

The palate is medium-bodied and fuller in the mouth than the La Mission: deeper fruit blackberry, mulberry and a touch of strawberry) intermingling with sage, cedar and a touch of hung game. It is not quite as precocious or glossy on the finish as I remember previous bottles, but it is certainly turning into one of the finest wines of this vintage. Tasted at the château.

Drink 2018 - 2045

As reported over the last two years, this is a prodigious Haut-Brion. It exhibits a dense ruby/purple colour in addition to a tight, but incredibly promising nose of smoke, earth, minerals, lead pencil, black currants, cherries, and spice. This full-bodied wine unfolds slowly, but convincingly on the palate, revealing a rich, multi-tiered, stunningly pure, symmetrical style with wonderful sweetness, ripe tannin, and a finish that lasts for nearly 45 seconds. It tastes like liquid nobility. 

Anticipated maturity: 2008 - 2035

Good medium ruby. Aristocratic, highly complex nose hints at plum, roast coffee, leather, grilled nuts, tobacco and earth. A bit reticent today but already offers an uncanny amalgamation of density and vinosity. A very suave, subtle wine that finishes with creamy, sweet tannins and terrific grip and length. Was there a more consistently outstanding first growth through the decade of the '90s?

Enologist and chef de culture Jean-Philippe Masclet compares the 2000 Haut-Brion to the 1990. "But the 2000 is fresher, like '98, while the '00 is more surmuri Still, the 2000 has the tannic sweetness of a vin du soleil." The millennial vintage featured superripe merlot with grape sugars in the 13.5%-14% range; the cabernet sauvignon averaged 12.5%, which Masclef told me was the highest ever for Haut-Brion. 

While the 2000 is a wine of obvious power, Haut-Brion is always difficult to taste at this early stage, and it is not yet apparent to this taster that the new vintage will surpass this estate compelling '98. Masclet agreed that they seem more or less equal in quality, but said he preferred the 2000 La Mission to the '98.