1998 Chateau Petrus Pomerol

Decanter's history of Petrus singles out 1998 as superlative, a year in which the fruit came in so clean that no sorting was needed. It was a Right Bank vintage: Merlot in Pomerol was harvested in good September conditions, after an August hailstorm on the Pomerol plateau and severe green harvests had cut and concentrated the crop, while much of the Medoc's Cabernet was still unripe when more than three inches of rain fell between September 26 and October 1. Petrus is the reference point for that Merlot: 11.5 hectares at the highest point of Pomerol, rooted in a buttonhole of blue clay some 40 million years old, raised to First Growth stature by Madame Loubat and carried forward by the Moueix family since the 1960s. The 1998 was made by Jean-Claude Berrouet, Petrus's oenologist from 1964 to 2008, whose son Olivier succeeded him. Now close to thirty years old, it is only entering its prime and has decades of life ahead.