Tasting Notes
Robert Parker 97
The blockbuster, opaque purple-colored 1998 L’Ermita (the finest since the 1995 and 1994) exhibits a full-bodied personality with copious quantities of sweet oak, a boatload of glycerin, and superb blackberry, cassis, and cherry fruit that explodes on the mid-palate and in the finish. The elevated quantities of new oak should become better integrated as the wine ages over the next 15-20 years. This is an exceptionally impressive/expressive wine. Importer: The Rare Wine Co., Sonoma, CA; tel. (707) 996-4484
Anticipated maturity: 2001-2021
Vinous 96+
Full deep ruby. Great brooding nose of black and red fruit liqueur, spices and flowers. Like liquid velvet in the mouth, but with bracing acids giving it a three-dimensional texture. A wine of uncanny chewy depth. Firmly structured and youthfully unevolved, but already quite explosive on the back half. Finishes with major dusty-but-ripe tannins and extraordinary persistence. Late hints of cassis and shoe polish. A great vintage for this wine, in need of at least five or six years of additional bottle aging.
