The Auswine Forum

Hi,
This will be my first post in this forum though i have been following everyones insightful banter for some time now.
And what really seems to be prevelant in some threads is that there seems to be a perception that some red's from SA for example St.Hugo cab/sav and Saltram No.1 the 99 seems to be better structured than the 98 thus probabbly a better wine to age . Also there seems to be some bagging of 98 of that the wines are too fruit driven and lack the stucture to go the distance compared to some 99 such as the examples given previuosly. Is this a case of the Great Red Hype of 98 or is the 98 vintage really the 10/10 that so many Vintage charts such as Langtons etc. rate it. Thanks in advance for your replys Henri

Henri,

When I first posted that the 99 St Henri IMO had a better structure and would last longer than the 98 many people thought I had been smoking dope (again. ) I also said the same thing about a few other wines, the Meshach and Armagh to name just a couple.

98 was incredibly good (especially after a pretty ordinary 97) and it produced many really rich and ripe wines. 99 lived in its shadow and whilst it was relatively easy to make good wine in 98 it was probably harder to do so in 99 but there are some great 99's around, the trick is to find them.

Many 91's are now showing they will outlast their 90 siblings, its a similar situation with 98 and 99.

I agree with Ric about 98 vs 99 and 90 vs 91. I have not had a bad 99 yet but still rate 98 as the best all round vintage I've ever seen. My only complaint is they seem quite extractive and need a long time to develop.

Chuck