1998 Saint-Joseph Saint-Épine

Director/enologist Jacques Grange initially felt the young 2000s were fine if a bit diluted by high yields, with the tannins not quite ripe enough. "Until September of this year I thought the red wines lacked concentration and structure compared to our region's wines, but now I find that they have good balance, finesse and purity," he explained. "And when you compare them to syrah from elsewhere around the world, they're not so bad." Still, Grange added, they will need earlier bottling than the '99s or '98s: the top '98s got an elevage of 26 months and the '99s 24 months, but the 2000s will be bottled after just 15 months. Grange finds the '98s especially true to their sites, while he considers the '99s the best vintage for the Northern Rhone since 1990. The house's top 1999 cuvees parcellaires showed spectacularly in November.

In the absence of director/enologist Jacques Grange, who was out of the country during my days in the Hermitage area, I was able to taste only a limited selection of wines from the '98 vintage, as well as a few samples of '99. Grange declined to prepare samples of his 1999 cuvees parcellaires as in a few cases the final blends for these cru bottlings had not been made and in others the wines had recently been racked. Grange has revitalized this old house since taking over in '97, but 1998 was the breakout vintage for Delas, as many of the company old oak foudres were replaced before the latter harvest. Grange gives most of his red wines a bit of pre-fermentation cold soak to obtain greater texture and flavor, and has increasingly carried out the malolactic fermentations in barriques which has helped to integrate the wines' wood component and achieve more opulence. Among the wines I sampled in November were several dense, powerfully structured reds that augur well for the continued improvement of this house.