Wines I'm Drinking: 1998 Château Mont-Redon Côtes du Rhône

Opened my last bottle of 1998 Château Mont-Redon Côtes du Rhône tonight. Wow. It was beautiful when it was new. It's even more beautiful at eleven years old. Inexpensive (about $11 a bottle), I bought this wine by the case when I first moved back to California from Tokyo (in 2000). It was so good then, it was hard to resist. This was the only bottle that survived. Wonderful scents of figs, violets, licorice, and meat. Perfectly balanced. Good fruit, mellowed tannins, soft acidity. Mature, but very much alive. This could easily pass for a Châteauneuf-du-Pape costing four to five times as much. Beautiful wine. Just goes to prove that great wine does not have to be expensive--but 1998 appears to have been a truly great year in the southern Rhône.