No doubt about it at all- there was more genuinely good, terrific and truly spectacular red wine made from the 1998 vintage than any other in Australian history. Virtually irrespective of region or variety, most makers should have every reason to rate their 1998 offerings as amongst their best ever, if not the best. At the time the season’s 954,700 tonnes was handsomely a national record, up by 8% on the previous high in 1996, a year from which 1998’s reds can be fairly and favourably compared. Most importantly, a then record 147,300 tonnes were shiraz, which cropped a remarkable 50,000 tonnes above the previous year. Sure there will be a large proportion of young vine wine, but from 1998 there will certainly be more red than ever before. The only real fly in the ointment was Western Australia, where rain in the middle of vintage made life more difficult in certain vineyards, especially in Pemberton-Manjimup and the Great Southern. Otherwise, given the favourably warm and dry conditions experienced from Adelaide to Pokolbin, if the winemakers got things wrong, it virtually had to be their own fault. From a wine writer’s perspective the 1998 vintage was a genuine bonus, coming as it did on top of the very questionable offerings from a much patchier season in 1997. This came home to me while researching the year 2001 edition of The OnWine Australian Wine Annual ($24.95 RRP incl. GST), which requires me to taste several thousand of them. Such is the difference in quality between the seasons that had I a child born in late 1997 I’d even be tempted to fudge the date of birth!
