RWT 1999

This was a gift from my neighbours in late 2002. It's a bit disappointing, knowing that it cost £40 (€60) in its day, and comes from a background with pedigree. The nose promises much more than the mouth delivers. The dominant nose is smoked bacon or wood smoke, a sort of barbecue effect. There's good fruit and forward expression of tobacco and pepper. But the palate suggests an imbalanced, imperfect wine: tannic power at the expense of harmony and complexity. The finish is surprisingly short, and the fruit overwhelmed by spice and wood. It's difficult to tell whether this wine was flawed in the first place (it's very unusual for WS to rate significantly higher than Parker, but this... more September 14, 2008