95 plus wine tasting body 15 year

95+ tasting 2003

This year the wine cellar celebrates its 15 anniversary, and his cellar master the half 100. Round years (divisible by 5) implies that the cellar treats the guests with a special 95+ wine tasting.

So 18 wines were prepared for the tasting, divided into 6 flights. The first flight containing entirely 95 point wines, the second flight 96 points etc. The tasters didn't know this sub theme from the start but guessed it already in the first flight.

Each flight were as usual composed of wines from different grape and different origin but this time with a comparable type of body. For example, a Tempranillo from Ribera del Duero and a Cabernet from Napa could go into the same flight, because the grapes are similarly strong and the wines having similar body. For this reason, the Bourgogne wine was included in a lighter Grenache flight and so on. For this reason I also had to use two wines that has already been part of earlier 95+ tastings, please have mercy upon me for this violation of the 95+ rules.

Full size 83 kBytes
Print size 1,16 MBytes The 95 point flight
1998 Ch de Beaucastel, Chateuaneuf du Pape
Medium deep and ruby red colour. Delicious, generous, open graceful and complex smell with lingon berries, herbs and dried fruit. A taste with fine balance, lovely fruit, and rather long finish not without fatness. A fine entry wine and all tasters agreed with Parker's point around 95 points.
1996 Old Wines Grenache, Kangarilla Vineyard, Clarendon Hills, Barossa Valley
Dark and ruby/brick colour. Shy intensity of rumbling, solid fruit. Some cherries and bitter almond hit the nose. A little tart in the taste, but powerful and concentrated. Long powerful fiery after taste. This was even more appreciated then the first wine and received between 95 and 97 from all tasters.
1995 la Tache, Domaine de Romanée Conti, Bourgogne
Medium deep and ruby red colour. Super toasted oak with good strawberry fruit, typical Burgundy and very well made. However, the taste was a disappointment, soft and elegant, but too weak and short for a wine carrying such loft price tag. All tasters agreed on around 96 points in the smell and around 93 points in taste.

Full size 93 kBytes
Print size 1,27 MBytes The 96 point flight
1989 Barolo Vigna Cicala, Bricco Bussia, Aldo Conterno, Piedmont
Rather dark, brick red. Dry and tight in the nose, leather and hay but all this as attractive attributes. Some paint and contact adhesive complement the smell, rather than disturb. Lovely mature fruit in the taste, very well designed traditional Barolo with enough fruit. Certainly it ends dry, but with a long aftertaste of enough fatness. Except one taster rating 93 to 94, the rest did like the wine very much and agreed on 95 - 97 points.
1992 Beringer Cabernet Sauvignon Private Reserve
Dark and ruby/brick colour. Hot climate smell of round and soft fruit, ringing of pure cabernet, lush with dill, mint and decayed leaves. Sweet ripe fruit in the taste, supple, charming and easy, understand and hard to spit. Many of us were in favour for a higher point than Parker, say 96 to 98 points.
1990 Ch Pichon Baron, Pauillac
Dark and ruby/brick colour. Typical Bordeaux from atypical hot vintage, the smell had characters of stable, wet horse etc, etc. Both smell and taste had the unmistakable signature for Bordeaux. Delicious also in the taste, dry in the mouth but with great pleasure, lovely mature fruit and a long after taste that were pure and focused. Again we found Parker a point too low.

Full size 79 kBytes
Print size 1,18 MBytes The 97 point flight
1994 Pesquera Janus, Ribera del Duero
Dark brick red. Fleshy, lush and nearly disorderly smell, a bit of Rioja but with a more powerful and fruity style of tar and dill. I had some problems with the inelegant smell, but most tasters loved it. The taste were strong and tight with a fiery and lush wrapping. The aftertaste were powerful, with some smoke and even burnt components. The tasters were for the first time divided into two schools, the part rating the power more than elegance approaching up to 99 points and the other school, included myself, were more suspicious with 96 points.
1999 Torbreck, the Factor, Barossa Valley
Dark ruby red. Extraordinary smashing oak in the smell that complements the pure and elegant Shiraz, a true beauty. Also some refined eucalyptus. The taste on the same way, well designed and very stylish to be an Aussi wine, quite the opposite to the coming Fox Creek. But don't misunderstand, the finish is long, waxy, sweet and powerful. We concluded the points to be 97 or 98.
1996 Pahlmeyer Merlot, Napa Valley
Dark brick red. A totally fruit driven wine, soft, velvety and herbaceous. Intense, seductive smell a la mature Pomerol, with dark chocolate and fresh mud. Coating the mouth with fruit, with exactely the tannin and acidity backbones to keep the wine together. Choleric and long in the after taste. We agreed with Parker and gave 96 to 98 points.

Full size 74 kBytes
Print size 1,10 MBytes The 98 point flight
1998 Fox Creek, Shiraz Reserve, McLaren Vale
Extremely dark ruby red. Loaded with blackberry fruit and pure oak, unbelievable concentrated fruit in the smell, without making the wine clumsy or heavy. In the taste as well, we found enormous quantities of fruit and extract, that fills every corner of the mouth, with a long pure aftertaste. This is my and interpretation together with some tasters but some others did find this wine to be too much. Thus the points spread between 95 to 99 points.
1996 Shafer Cabernet Sauvignon Hillside Select
Very dark and ruby/brick colour. Another wine stinking of pure new world Cabernet, juicy and coherent fruit. The taste is pure and focused, with soft round tannins and a long aftertaste with violets. A bit more tighter than the previous wine, but not for the shy. A straight and honest wine and all tasters agrees to 98 points.
1990 Ch Troplong-Mondot
Dark brick red. Intense smell of muddy and herbaceous fruit. Also combined with a suspicious tone of overripe apples, that is not entirely positive. The taste is very fat and packet with fruit, rather stern and with a long powerful aftertaste of mouth coating raisins with a hint of bitterness. On the whole a massive concentrated wine but not very typical St Emilion or Bordeaux (the above Phalmeyer merlot was more classic). We did appreciate the wine but the restrained feeling did end up in "only" 97 points.

Full size 76 kBytes
Print size 1,64 MBytes The 99 point flight
1997 Sorì Tidìn, Gaja, Langhe
Dark ruby red. Extremely elegant in the smell, with a fresh and laser focused acidity, which is smooth and velvet. Pure complex fruit with plums and tar. The attack in the mouth is mind-blowing, from a glaring colour palette of acidity, tannins, oak and fruit in a perfect interplay. All tasters agreed on the wine's elegance priority over power although the after taste was not a short history. It was difficult to interpret this as an easily 99 point wine, but on the other hand no taster were below 98.
1998 Clos Erasmus, Priorat
Very dark ruby red. Initially the wine smelled paper and cardboard, but that disappeared with aeration. The fruit is cold, massive and potent with cedar and pine-needles. The taste is extremely powerful, very harsh but accompanied with ripe, rich fruit. Long intense aftertaste. Both massive and balanced in both taste and smell, even if the taste is most impressive. Many tasters did rate it a 100 point wine and nobody were under 99 points.
1995 Ermitage Pavillon, Chapoutier, Rhone
Very dark ruby red. Lovely smoky smell from bacon and Parma ham. Rich fruit with a tight acidity makes a delicious rumbling Shiraz. Balanced in the taste to such degree that the concentration was hard to estimate. If this was the problem, or if the wine was to neat to deserve 99 points I don't know, but we finally agreed on 98 points.

Full size 92 kBytes
Print size 1,24 MBytes The 100 point flight
1999 la Mouline, Guigal, Rhone
Very dark ruby red. Bacon rind and meat pieces pops up from the glass. The smell also has a lot of spiciness and peppery character. And all this together with delicious oak and fluffy Shiraz. The taste is wonderfully balanced, with harmony and a long melting aftertaste, also revealing the splendid oak and focused acidity. Almost heaven and we all agreed that this was 100 points sharp.
2000 Ch Pavie, St Emilion
Very dark ruby red. Grass, herbs and smoke in the deep and complete fruit. Oak in huge quantity match the enormous fruit, and together this makes wonderful coffee and chocolate nuances. A smell more like the new world than the old. The taste is marked by cognac and parquet flooring (if possible to taste), thick, fat and rich with a nearly infinite aftertaste. The mouth runs the risk to drown. We discussed if a Bordeaux wine may be made to such new world archetype, but nobody could blame this Pavie for being one, resulting in well deserved 100 points (or more).
1997 Harlan Estate Proprietary, Napa
Very dark ruby red. Concentrated fruit like a tawny port and dried fruit as an amarone. It took a while to get used with this smell but no problems since then. The taste hit like a boxing-glove. The concentration is above our experiences from almost any red wine, excluded port. And even at this level it is so well balanced of blackberry sweetness and backbone tannins. Luckily this is the last wine that may reside in the mouth until breakfast next morning. Many tasters agreed that this is beyond 100 points.

Conclusions from this tasting

The superman of wine ratings
One must only conclude - Robert Parker is reliable to a degree that is hard to believe. Our 95+ tastings over and over proof this, and this tasting vas the definite proof.
This tasting was arranged like a staircase - three wines wide and six steps high. All the way, from the first step to the last, we got the feeling that the wines improved a bit for every step we climbed. And at this tasting we were most often in total agreement (it did help that I performed all selections by myself and had the opportunity to assemble wines which I expected to fit well together).
But think this over again. The staircase arranged was never a stair when Parker did taste these wines. The question is if he ever have tasted any two of them side by side. Nevertheless he is capable, by his palate and brain, of rating and sorting in any wine he encounter into his big experience database of tasted wines. Without bigger mistakes then we have identified in this tasting (almost none). Fantastic !
So if You like his model (or quality norm) of judging wine You are perfect safe. Personally I dare to buy wine solely from his recommendation without tasting myself in advance.

Elegancy versus power
Some steps in the staircase comprised more elegant wines and some steps more powerful wines. Step 95 and 99 might be consider on the elegant side and step 98 and 100 being the most powerful. It is true that we initially felt the step being higher from the elegant 99 to the powerful 100 than from the powerful 98 to the elegant 99. So it seems that power bias a taster to some extent, but when getting aware of this and judging the elegance a bit more significant, the steps become very similar in height weather going from elegance to power or the reverse.

All the superlatives
One would maybe argue that I use far to much positive statement when reviewing the wines above. But have in mind, these are the "crème del la crème" of all wines offered worldwide. Each wine above is most often from the most superior vintage and most often being the top wine from a portfolio from a most renowned wine producers in the wine world. Many of the above wines are made in very limited quantities and with extreme care. It is regarded as a privilege to purchase any of these wines and You are not in any position to negotiate the price.

Received ovations
This tasting was concluded by many of the present tasters to be the most interesting tasting they have ever experienced. I know how spoiled they are from fantastic wine tastings, so let me express that this is also a great moment for myself and my wife when preparing for the 95+ tastings. Thank You very much indeed for You great appreciations.

Also thanks to
Thanks also to the Swedish Systembolaget for poor understanding of the free market price formation for high quality wines, and the regularly offerings of world class objects at an unbeatable low cost. Of the same reason, thanks a lot to the majority of Swedish wine critics that doesn't understand Parker's types of wines, and regularly write such judgements as over extracted, atypical, too much etc, resulting in that these top wines remains at the Systembolaget's shelves to purchase in reasonable volumes.
Finally thanks a lot to the Swedish quality-conscious wine importers (specially VinUnic and Devine) that makes it possible at all to purchase these gems in Sweden for the 95+ tastings. Same kind of thanks to good retailers in Denmark (most notably "skattkammeren" at Sommerfelt & Kjär) for supplying all kind of top wines.

Full size 83 kBytes Print size 1,16 MBytes	The 95 point flight 1998 Ch de Beaucastel, Chateuaneuf du Pape Medium deep and ruby red colour. Delicious, generous, open graceful and complex smell with lingon berries, herbs and dried fruit. A taste with fine balance, lovely fruit, and rather long finish not without fatness. A fine entry wine and all tasters agreed with Parker's point around 95 points. 1996 Old Wines Grenache, Kangarilla Vineyard, Clarendon Hills, Barossa Valley Dark and ruby/brick colour. Shy intensity of rumbling, solid fruit. Some cherries and bitter almond hit the nose. A little tart in the taste, but powerful and concentrated. Long powerful fiery after taste. This was even more appreciated then the first wine and received between 95 and 97 from all tasters. 1995 la Tache, Domaine de Romanée Conti, Bourgogne Medium deep and ruby red colour. Super toasted oak with good strawberry fruit, typical Burgundy and very well made. However, the taste was a disappointment, soft and elegant, but too weak and short for a wine carrying such loft price tag. All tasters agreed on around 96 points in the smell and around 93 points in taste.
Full size 93 kBytes Print size 1,27 MBytes	The 96 point flight 1989 Barolo Vigna Cicala, Bricco Bussia, Aldo Conterno, Piedmont Rather dark, brick red. Dry and tight in the nose, leather and hay but all this as attractive attributes. Some paint and contact adhesive complement the smell, rather than disturb. Lovely mature fruit in the taste, very well designed traditional Barolo with enough fruit. Certainly it ends dry, but with a long aftertaste of enough fatness. Except one taster rating 93 to 94, the rest did like the wine very much and agreed on 95 - 97 points. 1992 Beringer Cabernet Sauvignon Private Reserve Dark and ruby/brick colour. Hot climate smell of round and soft fruit, ringing of pure cabernet, lush with dill, mint and decayed leaves. Sweet ripe fruit in the taste, supple, charming and easy, understand and hard to spit. Many of us were in favour for a higher point than Parker, say 96 to 98 points. 1990 Ch Pichon Baron, Pauillac Dark and ruby/brick colour. Typical Bordeaux from atypical hot vintage, the smell had characters of stable, wet horse etc, etc. Both smell and taste had the unmistakable signature for Bordeaux. Delicious also in the taste, dry in the mouth but with great pleasure, lovely mature fruit and a long after taste that were pure and focused. Again we found Parker a point too low.
Full size 79 kBytes Print size 1,18 MBytes	The 97 point flight 1994 Pesquera Janus, Ribera del Duero Dark brick red. Fleshy, lush and nearly disorderly smell, a bit of Rioja but with a more powerful and fruity style of tar and dill. I had some problems with the inelegant smell, but most tasters loved it. The taste were strong and tight with a fiery and lush wrapping. The aftertaste were powerful, with some smoke and even burnt components. The tasters were for the first time divided into two schools, the part rating the power more than elegance approaching up to 99 points and the other school, included myself, were more suspicious with 96 points. 1999 Torbreck, the Factor, Barossa Valley Dark ruby red. Extraordinary smashing oak in the smell that complements the pure and elegant Shiraz, a true beauty. Also some refined eucalyptus. The taste on the same way, well designed and very stylish to be an Aussi wine, quite the opposite to the coming Fox Creek. But don't misunderstand, the finish is long, waxy, sweet and powerful. We concluded the points to be 97 or 98. 1996 Pahlmeyer Merlot, Napa Valley Dark brick red. A totally fruit driven wine, soft, velvety and herbaceous. Intense, seductive smell a la mature Pomerol, with dark chocolate and fresh mud. Coating the mouth with fruit, with exactely the tannin and acidity backbones to keep the wine together. Choleric and long in the after taste. We agreed with Parker and gave 96 to 98 points.
Full size 74 kBytes Print size 1,10 MBytes	The 98 point flight 1998 Fox Creek, Shiraz Reserve, McLaren Vale Extremely dark ruby red. Loaded with blackberry fruit and pure oak, unbelievable concentrated fruit in the smell, without making the wine clumsy or heavy. In the taste as well, we found enormous quantities of fruit and extract, that fills every corner of the mouth, with a long pure aftertaste. This is my and interpretation together with some tasters but some others did find this wine to be too much. Thus the points spread between 95 to 99 points. 1996 Shafer Cabernet Sauvignon Hillside Select Very dark and ruby/brick colour. Another wine stinking of pure new world Cabernet, juicy and coherent fruit. The taste is pure and focused, with soft round tannins and a long aftertaste with violets. A bit more tighter than the previous wine, but not for the shy. A straight and honest wine and all tasters agrees to 98 points. 1990 Ch Troplong-Mondot Dark brick red. Intense smell of muddy and herbaceous fruit. Also combined with a suspicious tone of overripe apples, that is not entirely positive. The taste is very fat and packet with fruit, rather stern and with a long powerful aftertaste of mouth coating raisins with a hint of bitterness. On the whole a massive concentrated wine but not very typical St Emilion or Bordeaux (the above Phalmeyer merlot was more classic). We did appreciate the wine but the restrained feeling did end up in "only" 97 points.
Full size 76 kBytes Print size 1,64 MBytes	The 99 point flight 1997 Sorì Tidìn, Gaja, Langhe Dark ruby red. Extremely elegant in the smell, with a fresh and laser focused acidity, which is smooth and velvet. Pure complex fruit with plums and tar. The attack in the mouth is mind-blowing, from a glaring colour palette of acidity, tannins, oak and fruit in a perfect interplay. All tasters agreed on the wine's elegance priority over power although the after taste was not a short history. It was difficult to interpret this as an easily 99 point wine, but on the other hand no taster were below 98. 1998 Clos Erasmus, Priorat Very dark ruby red. Initially the wine smelled paper and cardboard, but that disappeared with aeration. The fruit is cold, massive and potent with cedar and pine-needles. The taste is extremely powerful, very harsh but accompanied with ripe, rich fruit. Long intense aftertaste. Both massive and balanced in both taste and smell, even if the taste is most impressive. Many tasters did rate it a 100 point wine and nobody were under 99 points. 1995 Ermitage Pavillon, Chapoutier, Rhone Very dark ruby red. Lovely smoky smell from bacon and Parma ham. Rich fruit with a tight acidity makes a delicious rumbling Shiraz. Balanced in the taste to such degree that the concentration was hard to estimate. If this was the problem, or if the wine was to neat to deserve 99 points I don't know, but we finally agreed on 98 points.
Full size 92 kBytes Print size 1,24 MBytes	The 100 point flight 1999 la Mouline, Guigal, Rhone Very dark ruby red. Bacon rind and meat pieces pops up from the glass. The smell also has a lot of spiciness and peppery character. And all this together with delicious oak and fluffy Shiraz. The taste is wonderfully balanced, with harmony and a long melting aftertaste, also revealing the splendid oak and focused acidity. Almost heaven and we all agreed that this was 100 points sharp. 2000 Ch Pavie, St Emilion Very dark ruby red. Grass, herbs and smoke in the deep and complete fruit. Oak in huge quantity match the enormous fruit, and together this makes wonderful coffee and chocolate nuances. A smell more like the new world than the old. The taste is marked by cognac and parquet flooring (if possible to taste), thick, fat and rich with a nearly infinite aftertaste. The mouth runs the risk to drown. We discussed if a Bordeaux wine may be made to such new world archetype, but nobody could blame this Pavie for being one, resulting in well deserved 100 points (or more). 1997 Harlan Estate Proprietary, Napa Very dark ruby red. Concentrated fruit like a tawny port and dried fruit as an amarone. It took a while to get used with this smell but no problems since then. The taste hit like a boxing-glove. The concentration is above our experiences from almost any red wine, excluded port. And even at this level it is so well balanced of blackberry sweetness and backbone tannins. Luckily this is the last wine that may reside in the mouth until breakfast next morning. Many tasters agreed that this is beyond 100 points.