| Review: |
"Surpassing the 2019 and rivaling the 2016 as this estate's finest vintage of the last few decades, the 2020 Montrose is a monument in the making. Wafting from the glass with aromas of violets, dark berries, licorice, loamy soil, black truffle and subtle spices, it's full-bodied, deep and layered, with a seamless, elegantly muscular profile, terrific purity and energy, beautifully powdery tannins and a long, resonant finish. It checks in at 13.7% alcohol, the same as the superb 2009, but it is even deeper, more vibrant and more complex than the 2009. This will be worth a special effort to seek out and only confirms Montrose's status as one of the contemporary Médoc's leading estates and a de facto first growth. This large estate overlooking the Gironde in Saint-Estèphe produces some of Bordeaux's greatest and longest-lived wines, and the last 15 or so years have seen it benefit from sustained and intelligently directed investment. There's a brand new winery and cellars, of course, but there's a lot of work going on in the vineyards too. When Olivier and Martin Bouygues acquired Château Montrose from the Charmolüe family in 2006, the estate included fully 17 hectares of pre-clonal vines dating back to the early 20th century, and a massal selection program has since identified 80 viable individuals, mainly Cabernet Sauvignon, for use when replanting (the same efforts are currently being lavished on Merlot, drawing on a block behind the château acquired from Phélan-Ségur). Now, cover crops are being trialed, and the soils are being cultivated more superficially to avoid disrupting the microbiome. Winemaking is rather classical, with maturation in some 60% new oak." |