2010 Château Montrose Grand Cru Classé Saint-Estèphe
Producer: Château Montrose
Region: Saint-Estèphe, Bordeaux
Country: France
Grapes: 53% Cabernet Sauvignon, 37% Merlot, 9% Cabernet Franc, 1% Petit Verdot
Vintage: 2010
ABV: 14%
Vivino: 4.5
Drink By: 2054
Occasional Wine Note: Chateau Montrose is our favorite of the Bordeaux "Super Seconds." Perhaps its the perfection in how well integrated the fruit, tannin, acidity, and earth are in this wine. Sure the 2010 is one Bordeaux's best vintages, but this Chateau produces outstanding wines year in and year out. This one should hold a place of honor in your cellar as it does in ours.
Wine Advocate
Critic Score: 99
Deep garnet colored, the 2010 Montrose opens with classic notions of warm blackcurrants, plum preserves, cedar chest and pencil shavings plus touches of menthol and underbrush. Full-bodied, concentrated and built like a brick house in the mouth, the densely packed, muscular black fruit is superbly supported by firm, ripe, grainy tannins, finishing with great length and depth.
Decanter
Critic Score: 98
And on to the tighter, more intellectual vintage of the two sparring partners of 2009 and 2010. You can feel the quality, the intensity, the more cerebral aspect of 2010 where the tannins are matched step for step by acidity and fruit. A wonderful wine, it will run and run and even now it floats somewhere on your palate, keeping itself hidden from view. If you want to understand why acidity can be a good thing, get to know Montrose 2010. There is an abundance of autumnal black fruit, certainly, even touches of bitter dark chocolate and dark pepper spicing, but this is going to unfurl at its own pace.