| Score: |
99+ JG.
" I had only had the good fortune to taste the ’98 Clos d’Ambonnay bottling from Krug during my visit to the estate back in the summer of 2011, and it was probably not the most propitious of circumstances for savoring this wine, as we were in the kitchen of Reims’ greatest culinary destination and meeting with its Michelin-two-starred chef (by the way, when is that overdue third star going to be bestowed on l’Assiette de Champenoise and its extremely talented chef, Arnaud Lallement?). Happily, this bottle was drunk under more ideal circumstances in terms of temperature (if not in terms of bonhomie and elegant surroundings!) and I fully had the opportunity to reflect upon the multi-faceted brilliance of this magically elegant and refined wine over an extended period of time. The 1998 Clos d’Ambonnay remains a youthful wine that is still years away from its apogee, but offers up a superbly elegant bouquet of melon, wild strawberries, nectarine, kaleidoscopic minerality, gentle notes of bread dough, plenty of smokiness and a gentle topnote of orange peel. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied, pure and utterly flawless, with a brilliant vein of minerality running down the center, perfect focus and balance, very refined mousse, zesty acids and simply stunning length and grip on the endless, supremely elegant and still fairly adolescent finish." John Gilman, View From The Cellar, Aug 2013 |