Chateau de Beaucastel Chateauneuf-du-Pape 1998

Professional Ratings

• 97 Decanter

  Comfortably still in its mature window, with old leather, blackberry jam and some whiffs of hung game. Enjoyably chewy tannins still, this is still powerful, with good length. Time to drink up now, but no hurry.

• 96 Wine Enthusiast
  A big, rich wine with huge amounts of fruit oozing out of the glass. Great concentration and intensity, with licorice flavors from the Mourvèdre, finishing with chewy tannins. A great year for this wine, which should age well for 15 to 20 years.
• 95 Wine Spectator
  Very youthful, with a juicy blast of red plum and fig fruit flavors on a racy frame, this also has plenty of spice, tar, plum cake and mineral in reserve, as the finish shows more structure and slowly darkens with time in the glass. Only just starting to hit its stride.--1998 Châteauneuf-du-Pape retrospective. Drink now through 2027. 15,000 cases made.
• 95 Jeb Dunnuck
  A slightly finicky wine that has shown a smidge erratically over the past 5 years or so, the 1998 Château de Beaucastel Châteauneuf-du-Pape showed brilliantly in this tasting, possibly hinting that it’s starting to enter early maturity. Beautifully fresh and clean, with gorgeous underlying structure and depth, yet still youthful and meaty, with hints of complexity, this should continue to evolve positively for another 3-5 years, at which point it should show well for another decade or more.
• 93 Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
  The atypically Grenache-dominated 1998 Chateauneuf du Pape is fully mature and gives up tons of kirsch, garrigue, licorice and a touch of gaminess in its full-bodied, layered and ripe personality. More rounded and sexy than most vintages, it has no hard edges, plenty of mid-palate depth and a great finish. I see no reason to delay gratification, but it will certainly hold for 5-10 years.