The 2020 Montrose was bottled in July 2022. The alcohol is 13.4%, a whole degree less than the previous year but with the same concentration (IPT is 80). It has a fabulous bouquet that delivers on all that promise from when I finally tasted the wine around a year earlier from barrel, a cornucopia of blackberry, bilberry, crushed stone, Indian ink and loamy/undergrowth scents. Very mercurial in the glass, it seems to shapeshift with every minute. The palate is medium-bodied with such a precise entry. This is far more detailed than either the 2019 or 2018, a symmetrical Montrose with unerring detail and mineralité, its silky texture belying the power underneath. This is unequivocally a brilliant wine and a benchmark in recent years. Contender for wine of the vintage.

The 2020 Montrose is epic. Dark, rich and brooding, the 2020 possesses remarkable intensity, and, yet it is somehow not excessively heavy. Time in the glass brings out the wine's more elegant sophisticated side. All the elements are so well-balanced. Red/purplish fruit, lavender rose petal, gravel and spice are all accented by veins of intense minerality that lend shape and energy. The 2020 is a modern-day classic for Montrose and one of the great wines of the Left Bank.

Tasted by Jane Anson(at Primeur week tastings in Bordeaux, 01 May 2021)
Part of Best St-Estephe 2020 wines tasted en primeur

A serious wall of blueberry and blackberry compote, and a ton of savoury Cabernet sinew and freshness. This is a great Montrose, inky, broad-shouldered and structured. It needs time to aerate and open in the glass, then you see the precision, the heft, the chiselling of the fruits with a ton of graphite, cigar box and campfire smoke - huge persistency. This will need a long time and will reward patience. One of the few where a 1986, 2016 and 2010 comparison makes sense. A yield around 30hl/ha. 1% Petit Verdot, 3.86pH, IPT 80. 45% of the overall production.

Drinking Window 2029 - 2050

(71% CS, 23% M, 5% CF, 1% PV; 40% harvest; 13.4% ABV)
Closed, tight, mineral, blackcurrant, subtle, and persistent; full, fresh, fairly (rather than notably) concentrated, typically fine in its tannin; richly ripe, elegant, contained wine, crisp, sweet, long, and linear, juicy and restrained at once, with excellent length. A lovely, accessible, complete classicism, a crisply blackcurrant beauty, which will most likely be a pleasure in the glass before its ’16, ’18, and ’19 vintages. 2028–45+.

64% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, 5% Cabernet Franc, 1% Petit Verdot. Cask sample.
Deep colour. Dark, intense and very pure but with an energy that makes it vibrant. Big tannic frame but tannins really finely honed. Long and persistent with plenty of drive on the finish. Long ageing potential. (JL)64% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, 5% Cabernet Franc, 1% Petit Verdot. Cask sample.
Deep colour. Dark, intense and very pure but with an energy that makes it vibrant. Big tannic frame but tannins really finely honed. Long and persistent with plenty of drive on the finish. Long ageing potential. (JL)