MONTROSE 2022

The 2022 Château Montrose is a classic blend of two-thirds Cabernet Sauvignon, with the balance 25% Merlot, 8% Cabernet Franc, and 1% Petit Verdot, all of which was brought up in 60% new oak from a variety of coopers. Another absolutely brilliant wine in the vintage, it offers a saturated purple hue as well as an essence of Montrose-like bouquet of currants, blueberries, damp earth, violets, graphite, and tobacco leaf. Full-bodied, incredibly concentrated, and powerful, it nevertheless has a riveting sense of purity, precision, and finesse that's hard to believe. Given its balance and purity of fruit, as well as the quality of the tannins, it's going to offer incredible pleasure with just 4-6 years of bottle age (a decade would be best) yet be just about immortal if well stored.

This is laden with gently steeped black currant, black cherry and blackberry fruit, inlaid with flashes of licorice snap, singed alder, chestnut and gunpowder tea. A flash of lilac skirts the edges, adding subtle energy and lift. The long finish offers an alluring feel, with an echo of warm earth lingering amid the fruit. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. Best from 2026 through 2045.

The 2022 Montrose has an outstanding bouquet that blossoms in the glass. Enticing scents of blackberry, bilberry and a touch of cassis open, while violet and iris flower notes emerge with time. The palate is medium-bodied with fine-boned tannins. The 2022 retains the structure of a typical Montrose, but those tannins are so finely chiseled that it renders this wine far more approachable compared to those I was tasting just a decade earlier. There is a patina of menthol toward the finish, a consequence of that year's warmth, yet it remains a seamless Saint-Estèphe that will doubtlessly age with immense grace. Fabulous. 2028 - 2060

Great depth in the nose, taking you into its core of blackcurrants, pencil shavings, graphite, tar, inkpot and cassis. Full-bodied and very tight, this flexes its polished muscles, showing form and tension. Compacted. From organically grown grapes. 66% cabernet sauvignon, 25% merlot, 8% cabernet franc and 1% petit verdot. This needs six to seven years to come around.

From barrel, I wrote that 2022 Montrose was so compelling that assigning it a bracketed score seemed a mere formality, and so it has proven. Unwinding in the glass with a deep and brooding bouquet of cassis, wild blueberries, violets, pencil shavings and burning embers, it's full-bodied, deep and dense, somehow marrying all the tannic authority that has long been such a signature of Montrose with a suavity and purity that represents the quintessence of contemporary Bordeaux. The broad, palate-staining finish lasts for more than a minute. This is a profound young wine that readers aren't going to want to miss.