2009 Chateau Montrose 2eme Cru Classe, Saint-Estephe 1x750ml

Robert Parker 95

Served blind at the Southwold 2009 tasting. The Montrose 2009 has an intense bouquet but it is somehow very contained at the moment. Nice precision here, perhaps a little smudged with baked cherry and bilberry fruit. The palate is soft and rounded on the entry and there is clearly immense backbone and weight. Even blind, the class shows through, but as usual it is a difficult wine to taste at the beginning of what will inevitably be a long career. Tasting a second bottle in a different flight, I noticed a more Pauillac-like personality with a powerful, burly finish that is typical of Montrose. Impressive verging on oppressive and vice versa! It will need serious ageing, lock this up for a decade before parole. Tasted January 2013. [Neal Martin, 01/01/2013]

Vinous 97

Bright, deep ruby-red. Drop-dead gorgeous nose offers cassis, mineral and candied violet aromas of great depth. Enters the mouth sweet, suave, and dense, showing utterly seamless, highly complex flavors of dark berries, underbrush, minerals and cedar. For a wine with such amazing depth of flavor, this comes across as almost weightless. Though it displays the upfront fruity charm of the 2009 vintage, this is a complex, rich monster that will prove extremely ageworthy. One of the wines of the vintage, and the best young Montrose I’ve yet tasted. [Stephen Tanzer, 01/07/2012]