1988 Chateau Lafite-Rothschild (Pauillac) -- I've had this wine 5 or 6 times now, and there's been some noticeable bottle variation. Last night was one of the better ones, about identical to my last bottle in May, 2002. This one was a still very dark color, with a shy nose that takes about 1/2 hour to start showing its stuff, which is cedar, minerals, and blackcurrant; cedar, sage, blackcurrant, minerals, plums with mouth-coating texture, filling the palate completely, showing progressively more nuances over 1.5 hours; very long but tannic finish, with the fruit winning out at the end, but not by much. I can't get a handle on whether or not this wine will be significantly better in a few years; the fruit is barely standing up to the tannins right now. Great with some red meat, though. App. 92-93 pts.

I'm going to be drinking another bottle next weekend, and will update this report after that.

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1988 Chateau Lafite-Rothschild -- had another bottle last night (Jan. 17/04) and it was fairly consistent with the note above. This time we decanted it about 2 hours prior to serving, and again it showed increasingly better as time went on. By the 4th hour, it was starting to strut its stuff in the way we hope for: lots of currant, mineral on the nose; silky in the mouth, with blackcurrant, plum, mineral, and tobacco flavors, some sweetness to the fruit; long finish with tannin chiming in, but not so much as previous bottle. This bottle seems to be a bit more evolved than the one from 2 weeks previous. Based on these showings, I won't open my last bottle for 5 years.

I hope this TN is still here, so I can add to it one last time.

[This message was edited by Seaquam on Jan 18, 2004 at 03:18 PM.]