Sporting a handsome purple color and lots of dark fruit aromas with cedar/cinnamon accents, this wine has attractive dark berry, licorice and tobacco flavors. For a relatively affordable wine, it shows a rather reserved, serious profile, and finishes dry, with even tannins. The green quality of some 1997s is absent here and the wine drinks well now, but should improve over the next two or three years. (Available fall 2000.)——M.M.(8/1/2000)—— 88