After a short decant. Cherries, spice cake, cassis. Very well-integrated, smooth finish. Showing exceptionally well tonight with pork tenderloin. Can’t believe this will get any better.
Hi Mark,
Had this a few weeks ago and enjoyed it a lot! Thanks for the note. Hope you and Mary and Danny are well. Btw, my iPhone crashed and I have lost your phone number…give me a ring when you get the chance.
Dain
Dain- will do. I’ve had a string of exceptional wines lately. Have to get you and Cathy up here for dinner and wine sometime, if I can drag you out of your wilderness paradise 
Can’t wait to see you guys! Have you heard from Coley lately? He has an evil plan for world domination afoot I just know it. In fact, I happen to know he wishes to plan some kind of Grand cru vs. some Calipinot producer…couldn’t really understand which as he went all braahahahahahaha…on the message at the end. Mark uh something…? I thought he was refering to you…Mark and son? No, Danny is too young to drink wine. Any way, he asked if I was up to drink some Grand cru burgs and of course I am all in!! I could bring some calipinot for fun too, but I have never heard of Mark & Son pinot noir in California. And I thought I was pretty tuned in to calipinot… 
Had one of these about 4 months ago, it was absolutely singing, in my running for WOTY…
Definitely agree…beautiful wine.
Was there any overt overripeness?
You’ve convinced me. I’ll open a 98 Beaucastel soon.
David ![[drinkers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/8/82916bed5ad74ac8470bc04089d9758b0c80c9fa.gif "drinkers"){kind=small}
I’ll put another one of my half bottles on the chopping block in the next 1-2 months. So far I’ve had a bit of bottle variability on this wine, but the better bottles have been excellent. (All my bottles so far have been halves.)
I have had some really, really killer bottles of this wine, and I have always wondered about the variability that people refer to. And then 3 of my last 4 have sucked. Hot alcoholic, stewy, and just weird. One bottle seemed clearly cooked, but 2 others have been from the same case that also yielded excellent bottles. I am holding my breath and hoping this one works out.
Glenn- no overripeness.
Eric- keep trying. I obviously had a good bottle and it was hitting on all cylinders.
I had a '97 about a month ago that was in a wonderful place and was easily the wine of the night that night.
I think those are the ones Parker liked. ![[oops.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/1/1f129ddad071ffe5db6c99817c3cab666035a70a.gif "oops"){kind=small}
'98s didn’t turn out the way I thought they would. I sold off my remaining case last year. I have plenty more vintages of Beau so not a big deal for me.
Mark,
Dain is referring to me trying to assemble a Marcassin vs. Grand Cru Burg tasting with the two of you and some of the KC Berserker guys like Frank Smith and Ryan Wilhite and maybe Michael Powers. I’ll be in touch.
Jim
Beaucastel with bottle variation? Perish the thought.
I get pretty big bottle to bottle swings, thought much less so since the 2001 vintage (if I’ve had enough to state an opinion).
Glad to hear the 1998 has reached maturity.
Jim- Excellent! Look forward to hearing from you.
I have 2 bottles of the 1998 on tap for tomorrow night. I haven’t had this wine in about 5 years, and at that time, it was disappointing.
The 1998 CNdPs are awesome 
What? you mean my joke wasn’t totally transparent?
Thanks for the note. I just noticed I have one bottle left of these and was wondering about it. Sounds like no hurry but no point in waiting either?