Personal Review: 1998 Lafite Rothschild(Pauillac)

This was a tremendous wine. It had a wonderful, complex nose that smelled like dark fruit and graphite. I drank this wine with my groomsmen at the rehearsal dinner before my wedding with steak, we all loved it. The taste had a great initial intensity and strength, not weak at all. Very dense midpalate, but not overbearing at all. It tasted of dark berries and black currant. The fruit was well integrated with the sweet tannin, everything is in glorious harmony. The finish I did not count for length, it was long enough, intense, and sweet. In this case Lafite was not merely banking on its reputation as the most elegant of the first growths, it has produced a profoundly elegant wine. This is without a doubt the greatest wine I have tasted.

Seth Hammond: 99
Robert Parker: 98

P.S. The wine merchant I bought this wine from on hearing I would be opening it later that week(Jan. 13th, 2006) at my rehearsal dinner, and thinking I would be sharing it with my soon to be wife remarked, "She better be worth it!" I think he disapproved of my opening this stunning wine a shade earlier than it deserved.