highly touted by Coates, remember this vintage was pre Meadows, pre Gilman, Tanzer was fairly new, and the vintage followed 86/87, a weak duo. Prices were good and DRC got dumped on the market for very low prices, causing Lalou’s ouster from the DRC board. For her domaine, it was the first year–the Brulées was amazing. They were tannic and backward wines, but there were lots of good ones easily available and worth buying for the young and patient.
alan
Faively Chambolle-Musigny Combe d’Orveau is lovely
I’ve been holding off on the ones I still have. I don’t think there is any hurry about consuming them. In general, I like the ones I have tried, though some certainly are structured. I would highly recommend an extended slow-O, i.e. open very early, take out a small taste to enlarge the surface area a bit, then keep cool and wait 4 - 6 hours! 
That will take the edges off, but preserve vitality and complexity, and promote fruit, depth, and integration too.
I’ve always loved this vintage. I remember when I visited the region in 1990, no one had any '88s to sell; it was crazy. The combo of deep fruits and deep tannins promised longevity and good fruit when mature. Not sure it is quite there…but almost.
Had an '88 Grivot VR villages this weekend. (An Accad wine; I’m a big fan of his results at Accad and Senard that year.) Deep deep fruit; tannins pretty much resolved and ripe. The wine is dark; the fruit reminds me of cherries and cherry pits. Smooth and harmonious…and decently long, fruity finish. An outright success. (When we visited Grivot in '88, they were actually bottling this that day, and he grabbed a few to sell to us.) Opened, cleaned of sediment (brown coffee filter) and put into open decanter for an hour and a half…and really nice. Though Tom Blach won’t believe it, it was delicious on day two, kept in simply re-corked bottle. In fact, it seemed to have even more finesse on day 2, surprisingly.
Rousseau’s whole lineup in '88 is/was superb…particularly loved the Mazy…and realized from this vintange how good/underrated it is there…
1988 Vogue Musigny VV was my Burgundy ‘epiphany’ wine… A very expensive bottle for me because I became a Burgundy collector after that.
Some of my experiences from the top of my head.
88 Rousseau Chambertin was epic last night. 88 CSJ is very good but they can hit higher highs with that vineyard(93 for sure and maybe with 85)
A bottle of 88 Lafarge Chenes was lovely at the Domaine a few months back, pretty darn good a couple weeks ago in NYC but with time in the glass it did fade a bit.
Have thoroughly enjoyed my 88 Dujac experiences.
88 Mugnier Musigny VV is maybe the greatest Musigny I have had and certainly the best Mugnier I’ve tasted(although his 2010s could challenge).
The 88 Leroys I have had are stunning but still young.
Ramonet seemed to have continued his insane hits run of the late 70s into the early 90s and did exceptionally well based on a Montrachet and BBM experience.
88 Jayer Cros P is one of my greatest drinking privileges. My first Jayer, will never forget it(still young though, actually shut down).
Not a huge fan of but usually am a fan of their wines include Drouhins, Angervilles and Mugneret Gibourg.
I had the Roumier Bonnes Mares as well earlier this year and it was cracking. A Jean Grivot Richebourg about 4-5 years ago was memorable also.
Thought I only had some Musigny left from '99, but just found I also had a bottle of the Bonnes Mares, so good to know…
Great notes. I have a bottle of the 88 Mugnier VV so looking forward to that. I would love to try a bottle of the 88 Lafarge.
88 Vogue Bonnes Mares at Bern’s 2 years ago was killer.
One of my best buys in Burgundy were from 1988. Found 4 bottles of Mugnier Musigny in a dump bin at Sam’s in Chicago for about $25 each in the early 90s.
see, y’all are all discussing trophy wines - I daresay most of those wines were great in every recent vintage. Personally, what I’ve loved about 1988s is how wonderful the little wines have been - e.g., premier cru volnays, pommards and beaunes - and not the particularly heavy hitters.
I think, as Maureen does, that '88 is terrific across the board, which is my only criterion for a great vintage…though, IMO, '90, '99, '02 and '05 far surpass '88 in consistency (the cote de beaune was a little heavy on the tannic side in '88, imo). For its era/climate, '88 was as good as it got…and it was really fine…though it needed forever to resolve the tannins.
The trophy wines, IMO, show almost nothing about the quality of a vintage except the vintage’s character. Trophy wines are almost always ripe/structured enough in any vintage, which is why they’re trophy wines…and cost accordingly. My guess is that that was the only criterion for the monks when they were figuring out the best vineyards: the ability to ripen most years…and, therefore, produce the best wines year after year. (I’m sure they weren’t into complexity, “transparency” (a term I consider meaningless and even silly)…or other things us wine geeks focus on; just which vineyards produced pleasing wines…and walled them off in many cases. And, I’m pretty sure they weren’t trying to age them or evaluate them for longevity early on…as they didn’t bottle them.
De nada…maybe we can drink it w my Cros P.
sure !
Let me put it this way… I found an '88 Bourgogne from Montille in the cellar a few weeks ago and while it was FULLY mature… it was just mature and in no way dead. A Bourgogne…
There’s no reason why Bourgogne should take less time than other appellations.
Well, Tom, though you are the poster child for love of 2004 reds, we do agree on this one.
Though the bourgognes and villages usually “last” longer in my cellar because I am more willing to sacrifice them to see how they/their vintage is doing, there is no reason they take less time to mature…and, in fact, when mature are worth the effort.
Well… I’ve always presumed, based on what I’ve tasted, that producers usually made their village and regional wines on the lighter side (and the allowed yields do encourage this…) assuming that people will want to drink them on the young side. Then too, they have something to sell to restaurants, etc., that want an earlier-drinking wine they can put on their wine list.
I had the '88 Leroy RSV a couple nights ago at Addison in Del Mar. It was preceded y a '71 Latour which was silky and elegant and probably made the '88 RSV seem even less evolved. The tannins were still very evident and not much showing in the way of secondary flavors or aromas. I hope that in another few years this starts to relax a little and show more of its potential.