James Suckling recently celebrated 10-years of living in Tuscany and drunk a host of wines from 1998 to celebrate. Stuck in among the Italian wines was a bottle of Bon Pasteur 1998 from Bordeaux that reminded Suckling 'how great Bordeaux’s Right Bank wines, as well as Pessac-Léognan, were in 1998. This is a monumental vintage'.
He makes the further point:
'Many wines, such as Cheval-Blanc, Pétrus and Le Pin, are clearly better in 1998 than 2000, even though prices are higher for the wines in the latter vintage. Even the president of Cheval-Blanc admits that 1998 is superior to the 2000. And the Thienpont family at Le Pin also agree.'
Suckling also uses the opportunity to release some notes he took at a blind tasting of the 1998 vintage organised by Farr Vintners in London last year, although he makes the point that these are unofficial scores.
See the tables below for a comparison of Suckling's scores from last year (JS – 07) with his official Wine Spectator scores, the majority of which are from 2001(JS), along with scores from Robert Parker and the latest prices from Liv-ex. We have also added a table showing the sames data from the 2000 vintage for comparison. The current price for Haut Brion 1998 looks particularly interesting.
| 1998 vintage | JS – 07 | JS | RP | Price (£) |
| Petrus | 100 | 100 | 98 | 22,500 |
| Pin | 100 | 100 | 93 | 15,250 |
| Haut Brion | 98 | 97 | 96 | 2,800 |
| Evangile | 98 | 98 | 92 | 1,080 |
| Cheval | 97 | 96 | 93 | 5,100 |
| 2000 vintage | JS | RP | Price (£) |
| Petrus | 98 | 100 | 28,000 |
| Pin | 93 | 98 | 24,000 |
| Haut Brion | 94 | 98 | 5,200 |
| Evangile | 96 | 96 | 1,400 |
| Cheval | 93 | 100 | 7,600 |
