MONTROSE 2009

The 2009 Château Montrose is just pure perfection, and it doesn't get any better. This magical Saint-Estèphe is still youthful yet offers incredible pleasure in its assorted black and red fruits as well as notes of smoked tobacco, licorice, graphite, and scorched earth. A wine that has always been open and satisfying since release, it's still full-bodied and has a broad, expansive, velvety mouthfeel, gorgeous and still present tannins, and a great, great finish. It's a richer, more expansive wine compared to the more focused, classic 2010. Unquestionably one of the finest wines in the vintage, as well as one of the legendary wines from this address, it should evolve for another 40-50 years, although don't let that stop you from opening a bottle!

A bit of a brute, with a very chewy bittersweet ganache, tobacco and roasted fig core splayed open right now by a dagger of roasted apple wood, allspice and cedar. Long and dense through the finish, with a strong singed iron edge. The stuffing is certainly there, but this will take a while to come together as it's running unbridled right now. Proves you can still get classic old-school Bordeaux. (JM)

(a blend of 65% cabernet sauvignon, 29% merlot, 5% cabernet franc, and 1% petit verdot; pH 3.7; 98 IPT; 38 hl/ha; 13.7% alcohol; no press wine used) Opaque, almost impenetrable inky-ruby. The profound but initially reticent nose opens with air to reveal superb depth to the cassis, violet and mineral aromas. Then wonderfully dense yet weightless, with a penetrating quality to its black fruit and mineral flavors. The inky, minerally, very long finish features very smooth tannins. Currently less generous and showy than some other '09s, this is nonetheless a classic Bordeaux in style. With its mineral reticence and austerity, it is also very typical of Saint-Estephe.

For the very ripe vintage this has a herbal and wet earth nose that's very cool. Then on the palate there’s a ton of ripe cassis, polished fine tannins and a tremendous freshness powering the very long dry finish. One of the stars of the vintage that's just beginning to enter its best form. This is normally a perfect wine but perhaps not a perfect bottle? Drink or hold. (Horizontal Tasting, London, 2019)

A brilliant wine that stands out as one of the high points of the vintage, the 2009 Montrose unwinds in the glass with a rich and incipiently complex bouquet of dark berries, cigar wrapper and loamy soil, framed by a deftly judged touch of new oak. Full-bodied, broad and enveloping, it's a velvety, layered and impressively dynamic wine that's deep and concentrated, exhibiting terrific balance and a long, resonant finish. While it is still five or six years away from showing all its cards, I have drunk this benchmark for contemporary Montrose with immense pleasure three times this year. In style, it's hard to find an obvious comparison (and I have drunk Montrose back to 1895), but I would be inclined to invoke a fresher, more complete and more powerful version of the estate's very successful 2003.