What about new Spanish monastrell (murvedre) wines?

You’re right mate

Gastro, what do you mean when you say that Pie Franco ’98 ";dropped dramatically"; since the last summer?

I am very interested in knowing how this type of wine evolves in bottle.

Have you tried recently Divus? I enjoyed the ’2000 and still have one bottle in the Chambrair.

Well, I have no such thing as a broad experience (let alone deep) with Monastrell, so I cannot distinguish this collapse from mere closure.
Moreover, since 98 was --I believe-- its inaugural vintage, there’s little I can say for sure, but I had the 98 immediately upon release and it was hard as nails, though awfully promising. Thoughout 2002 it was immensely enjoyable, but when I had it again this August I found it had lost most of its fruit and was playing a more tertiary game. Since 18 months ago it seemed to be going to live forever, I could guess dumb phase, but Marc at WS tried it too and said he merely ";hoped"; it was just closed...
No luck with Divus, btw, remember I’m just a colony-dweller, and I’m taking my time to catch up with ye mainlanders ;^)

Pie Franco ’98 has always been an irregular wine. We at peña La Verema have found great bottles and poor ones. You can read for instance this thread (in Spanish):

https://www.verema.com/comunidad/foro/mensaje.asp?mensaje=28247

BTW, I have drunk Hecula ’99 this week and... well, it’s still a fruity, vinous wine (now doesn’t need extreme double decanting :-) but hasn’t developed any further complexity. I think it’s necessary a longer process of trial and error in the vinification of these monastrell wines from Murcia and Alicante to really improve the potential to develop complexity in bottle.

Let’s try Pie Franco ’2001...

I have had several bottles of Divus over Xmasts (with family help, of course). The fact that I kept buying it already shows that I liked it a lot; it has a very good QPR.

MaJesus

What vintage, MaJesus? ’01? I have only drunk the ’00 and it was really great.

... and it was really great too! ... so much that I kept one of the bottles to myself ... see if I can taste it quietly and concentrate on it (these massive family lunches are quite great to enjoy nice wine, but not to concentrate on it!)

MaJesus