RP100: Tasting the 1998 Hermitage Le Meal is cause for celebration. It is a powerful, slightly nuanced as well as unctuously-textured example, yet it still manages to avoid heaviness. The wine possesses extraordinarily ripe, buttery, honeyed fruit with a liquified minerality intertwined with power, richness, and fabulous purity. Despite the fact that this wine is barrel-fermented and aged in 100% new French oak, it is so concentrated that the wood is barely discernible. Look for the Hermitage Le Meal to last three decades or more. This is a white wine of legendary proportions.