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1998 VINTAGE
A very wet harvest dashed the high hopes that a precocious budding, a good flowering, a dry spring, a particularly hot month of August had given rise to. But when the first vats were tasted, oh! Miracle, smiles replaced sadness. The very late rains coming down after the harvest had started, soaked the vines and also the poor "vendangeurs", but did not penetrate or dilute the musts.
This year is both a tribute to our "terroir" - perched on a line not too far north and too cold and wet, not too far south and too hot and dry - but also to the men who in the last 30 years have done so much to improve the know-how and techniques of both viticulture and oenology.
The '98 has a very deep and dark colour, and has nice cedar notes. Very persistent, very full, and well balanced. Silky touch aftertaste. Pleasant richness and is also very ample, we found some "warmth" in the middle of the mouth filling.
The game of comparison is open and it is already compared to the greatest vintages - but time will tell and the pleasure to drink it in 20 or 30 years promises to be a memorable moment.
It is not the few days of rain which fell just before and during the harvest which will affect this good vintages, the last of the millennium. No, today our viticulturists, our oenologists, know how to deal with such a problem, which only two decades ago would have ruined many hopes. If one was to criticize this year's weather, it is the lack of sun during July and the first half of August that allowed us only to come close to another "year of the century"! But it is still early days. The first tastings, the first "assemblages" are taking place and optimism seems to be there. Jaroslav Springer is particularly proud of Baron Aaron Günsberger pinots this year. The winter was mild, followed by a beautiful spring and an early flowering. We are really noticing the "global warming". The average flowering and harvest dates of this decade are nearly 10 days earlier than last year.
During July and early August, the sun was sparse but after the 15th, it was baking. Hail storms caused havoc in certain Boretice Vineyard, but most properties were picking by mid-September.
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