Thanks for all the thoughtful replies everyone.
This thread is a burg lover/lurkers jackpot.
I don’t have the experience of a Thornton or Levenberg, but I’ve always thought that 00 provided both an opportunity to taste better producers for relatively less money and experience better vineyards in a shorter drinking window. I think the fact that 00 never really shut down and has always remained open, accessible and pretty makes it worth value hunting right now. Last month when I was visiting Burgundy I had a 00 Arnoux Vosne-Romanee Aux Reignots that was superb. It was bought off of a wine list and was still less than half of what a bottle of the 05 is going for at retail right now…
There are some really great comments on this thread. Along with Alan and Robert I would agree that the '00s don’t have the long term aging potential, but it is a great vintage to really learn about the nuiances and complexities of the terrior. The '00 Leroy Beaumonts I had recently was such an incredible example of that exotic Vosne spice, and complexity of the vineyard. The '00s are just much easier to understand as they are lighter and more expressive, which is how I felt after tasting the '07s
Hi Peter,
I think everyone has beautifully covered how the '98s and '00s came to be a bit overlooked at the outset. Both vintages had to deal with the long shadow cast by the exuberant 1999s, and the '00s also had to deal as well with the follow-up vintages of 2001 and 2002, so it was very easy to overlook the very beguiling qualities of both vintages with such an embaressment of riches of other top vintages available at the same time.
I was in Burgundy tasting the '98s from barrel at the same time that Pierre was there, and I can vividly remember many vignerons being surprised that I was so positive about the wines, as Pierre had not been overly enthusiastic, to put it mildly. As Jean-Nicolas Meo observed about the '98s at that time “every time Burgundy has a tannic vintage it gets panned by the critics, but these wines should age beautifully.” What I liked about the vintage from the outset in barrel and which I continue to find as the strong point of the top wines is that they have always had really vibrant expressions of their underlying terroir, despite in some cases, only having solidly ripe fruit. Some wines are utterly complete, while others are only moderately ripe and had a slight green edge to them early on, but this is working out of those wines very nicely and the terroir is really starting to shine. But 1998 was not a vintage where “formulaic winemaking” was going to capture the best attributes of the vintage, so there are certainly some “swings and misses” out there. But as many others have observed here, the best growers made terrific wines in this vintage. I own a lot of the '98 vintage, but have been trying to give them just a few more years in the cellar to more fully blossom, as the better premier and grand crus are generally still a bit tight and shut down.
The 2000s were a bit better received than the '98s out of the blocks, and were considered particularly strong in the Cote de Nuits in particular while the wines were still in barrel, and I think that this is still probably a pretty good generalization for where to find the best wines in this vintage. Out of barrel the 2000s were plush, modestly tannic and beautifully balanced, with only the slightly lower acidity of the vintage a caveat for mid to longer-term cellaring. The vintage was a bit stronger at the village wine level than 1998 (as ripeness was easy to attain in '00), and I have bought and drunk with a lot of pleasure several terrific AC bottlings from the likes of folks like Dujac, Roumier, Mugneret, Mugnier and Rousseau. Lately I have been crossing paths with some very pretty Cote de Beaune bottlings as well (Ramonet’s Chassagne Rouge bottlings are splendid for example), and I am beginning to think that I should have cellared more southern red Burgs from this vintage as well. I have been dipping my toe in the water of the '00 premier and grand crus lately, but want to give the '00 grand crus at least a few more years of cellaring, baed on the few that I have had of late, as they definitely are showing better structure than they did in their first 
of youth and seem serious enough now to give them another four or five years to really reach their apogees.
In general I think that you have been doing very well in exploring the two vintages, as there is a lot of real good drinking to be had from both '98 and '00 red Burgs, and I strongly believe that the two vintages are still on their way up and will even drink better three or four more years down the road, for those who are patient with the wines. But with so many drinking well out of the blocks (particularly the '00s), I would suspect my experience is not unique of going down into the cellar to grab a bottle of '00 Georges Mugneret Chambolle “Feusselottes” for dinner one evening recently, only to find that the box was empty and I had already finished the entire case!
Best,
John
John; your take on the 98 vintage matches my experience. Although I have not tasted a whole lot of different wines from that vintage, a DRC horizontal (without the RC) showed exactly what you are talking about. The wines were tight, the tannins quite massive, but an underlying structure that made us pretty confident these wines would evolve beautifully the next 5-10 years.
All the 2000’s I’ve had are open and drinking beautifully now. Those are the wines I’m seeking out for near term consumption.
Thanks for all the other insightful posts in this thread!
To follow up on what John said, I too find that I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel on my 2000s at the village and 1er cru level. OTOH, the couple of village wines from 1998 that I have had this spring both showed in need of more time (Bachelet Gevrey VV and Grivot Vosne). Those 2 wines were certainly drinkable with air, but without a doubt they will improve with more age.