Twenty-Five Years On: The 1999 Vintage
I was dreamin’ when I wrote this
Forgive me if it goes astray
But when I woke up this mornin’
Could’ve sworn it was judgment day
– 1999, Prince (1982)
Would it be melodramatic to claim that, for the bottles reported on here, it really is Judgement Day?
Probably. It’s what I am going with, though.
Winedoctor has long been home to a variety of anniversary tastings, featuring wines celebrating their 10th, 15th, 20th or other significant birthdays. This practice continues, although these days I tend to focus on the site’s two main ‘specialist subjects’, as seen with my recent Bordeaux 2014 and Loire 2014 reports, both vintages revisited at ten years of age.
Nevertheless, I cannot resist diving into the deeper, darker corners of the cellar every now and again to pull out some of my older bottles, including those from other regions. So, bypassing the little stack of Bordeaux from the 2000 vintage (I really must pull some of those soon, as they too celebrate their 25th birthday later this year), not to mention some slowly maturing Vouvray, I recently pulled a dozen bottles from the 1999 vintage, taking in old-school classics from the likes of Hermitage, Côte-Rôtie, Musar and more, as well as – for those of you primarily interested in the Loire Valley and Bordeaux – a few sweet wines from these two regions.
