my wines and more: 98 Smith Haut Lafitte

Wednesday, 6 October 2010

98 Smith Haut Lafitte

1998 Château Smith Haut Lafitte;
Ruby with garnet rim, dark fruits, cassis, rich and still elegant, slightly green and herbal behind. Ok acidity, good tannins, a touch rustic, black currants, haven't quite nailed the elegance Pessac's may have in 98, good length. 88

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About me

"-To me wine is one of the greatest and sometimes worst of the world’s great pleasures. When you get that one bottle, or even that one sip of a truly great wine, you're just lost. Wine can be almost everything, great pleasure, great fun, deeply tragic, complex, easy, boring, fresh, fantastic, but maybe the greatest of it all, floating history. Imagine drinking your birth year wine, you drink you're own age, and in a way your own life. Memories comes rushing back... Or what about drinking a 1945? After the war was over and they were able to make some of the most legendary wines of all time".

Christer has over 23 years of experience in wine, took WSET Level 2 in 2003, WSET Level 3 in 2005 and finished WSET Level 4 Diploma in 2011. Christer has worked for the Norwegian Vinmonopolet and for wine importers as product manager and in sales before becoming a wine critic. Christer has for years been an international wine judge. He tastes about 7500-8000 wines a year and is approaching 90.000 wines tasted, from all over the world. His web site BMyBordeaux is one of the worlds largest collections of tasting notes on Bordeaux. He also runs BMyBourgogne and BMyWine. Christer has enjoyed the privilege of membership in the following honours:

-Commandeur de Bordeaux in 2011

-Hospitalier d’Honneur de Hospitaliers de Pomerol in 2014

-Gentilhomme d’Honneur du Duché de Fronsac in 2015

-Prud’homme de la Jurade de Saint-Emilion in 2015

-Comandeur d'Honneur de Médoc ou des Graves, de Sauternes ou Barsac de l'Ordre du Bontemps in 2017

-Member of Academie du Vin de Bordeaux, 2019

All views are his personal ones. He lives in Norway, and is a freelance wine writer and a wine educator and after several requests write all his TN’s in English. Please pardon errors in a foreign language. Christer is one of the most experienced tasters of his generation.

Scores and ratings, what do they mean?

Wines are scored for quality and quality only. For the bottle or sample that is tasted there and then, as that one is. Not peer group. Peer group tastings in my opinion make wines from lesser grapes or areas seem to be better than they actually are as the benchmark is lower, and most peer group tasters tend not to rate a wine perfectly within the group either, which makes it all a bit strange. I can't remember ever to have seen a rosé wine getting a perfect score as an example. Then it's not a true peer group taster in my opinion. Peer group tasting also make the truly great wines seem less great as something else regularly get similar scores even if the quality of the two is miles apart.

96-100 Great wine of spellbinding beauty and resonance, leaving the drinker with a sense of wonder

90-95 Outstanding wine of great beauty and articulacy

86-89 Very good wine with some outstanding features

83-85 Good wwine with no outstanding features

80-82Enjoyable but simple and straightforward

75-80 Sound but dull or boring wine with no character or appeal

Wines marked below this level will not be written about on this blogg, and should it happen, it won't be impressive anyway.

Some wines are more for competitions and to impress certain wine writers, so here is my view on a wines drinkability. if you are a human.

***** The bottle will empty before you know it
**** The bottle will empty
*** The bottle is likely to be emptied, especially with food
** Will probably not empty
* Will only be emptied if everyone is allready drunk or if someone have to few tastebuds.

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Wednesday, 6 October 2010

98 Smith Haut Lafitte

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