2/24/24, 12:04 PM - Very timely, and I appreciate the decanting note. Our tasting group is gathering tonight and one couple’s daughter is home from school and joining us- turns out she’s a 2002 baby, and I just happen to have a bottle of this standing - same source as yours. Planning to give it roughly the same treatment, though I may leave it to decant for a while once I pull the cork and assess where it’s at. Cheers!
2/1/24, 4:10 PM - From that new joint that opened up? Can I assume the chicken is worthy of the Champagne?
11/28/23, 5:07 PM - I am not sure if this was prepped ahead of time- I would venture a guess that it was most likely opened when the folks who brought it arrived, so it probably just sat open for two hours at most before it was poured. We should make a point of noting any advance prep done when we are discussing and unveiling the wines. I’m going to have to try to remember to add that to our discussion for our next tasting (in January).
11/21/23, 7:22 AM - I've only had it one other time- the 2019, and the two vintages compare very favorably with nearly identical profiles. If two bottles can be considered representative, this is right in my wheelhouse for domestic syrah. I may have to get on this list.
2/19/23, 6:30 AM - I half recall the distributor saying these had been decanted for a couple of hours.
8/29/22, 10:42 AM - Hello, Haggis! We're well, hope you and MR are happy and doing well. Yeah, this one surprised the hell out of me. I think it's almost definitely a bottle issue- let's face it- twenty years on there are going to be some great ones and some clunkers too- not that this was a clunker, just not what I expect from Monte Bello. I was going to pull one of my own to open in the near term and check, but we have only the two so I've got to wait until January when we can share them with our nieces who will be legally able to partake.That said, I was in the minority- others loved it- I just found it a touch bouillony and ripe. So perhaps I was just having an off night- it was bound to happen eventually, ;).
8/20/22, 10:04 AM - What was the verdict, counselor? Long story long… I am working in the cellar today…needed to pull some bottles and noticed a “thread.” Dumbass that I am, I just couldn’t ignore the thread and leave it be, so I pulled it. Now three-plus hours in, I’ve pulled down the entire top shelf, and have re-taped quite a few boxes that had the tape come loose. Literally just pulled the box off the shelf containing these and the counterpart grenache. Thought about taking one of each back as we’ve not opened any of ours yet.
4/29/22, 6:00 AM - Haggis! We are well, thanks. I hope you and MR are enjoying the hell out of life right now. It's been far too long since we've seen you guys- hopefully we find occasion to pull some corks in the very near future. Cheers!
1/31/22, 7:06 PM - No
1/26/22, 6:59 PM - Great to hear from you, A! Hey, did I hear correctly that you’re back in the area? I may have to make a road trip northwest if that’s the case and pop in to the store and say hello. It’d be good to have the enabler back! Anyway, yeah, this was something. Fairly dark color so no apparent issues other than the overly raisiny fruit. I am beginning to think this is just how they make CndP these days, and nowadays I just won’t buy unless I taste first (aside from Pegau). Loved the ‘16s though…good ripe red berry fruit profiles and nothing raisiny or pruney. Shoot me an email, i think you’ve got it- hasn’t changed, though you can get it from the system too. Take care!
6/16/21, 4:39 AM - As young as it is I don't know that there is that much more to coax out of it. A few years in the cellar would be much better, but that said, the fruit on these '18s is really nice. This was a last minute decision when I had to change my entree selection from fish to beef, and the list of cabs at the club isn't great, save for the little bit of Montelena they have tucked away.
1/16/21, 2:48 PM - Just finished putting up the whole event- a fun tasting. The Bard was clearly at a disadvantage for WOTF/WOTN voting given the 2+ year gap between it and the others in the tasting. However, despite the age difference, it's still an excellent wine in its own right, and a lack of votes in this lineup is certainly no reflection on the quality of what's in the bottle. This style isn't something I would typically reach for, but there are certainly situations in which I would want it on my table!
1/7/21, 2:20 PM - This was TLV's bottle as well. He's got more of these to burn than I have. :)
1/2/21, 6:18 PM - Depends on how you like you cabs, but for me, in large format it's a long way from integrating the oak and tannin. I suspect standard bottles also still need time.
12/28/20, 9:44 AM - A, long-time no talk! Hope all is well with you and yours. I don't recall much of it, unfortunately, but since I guessed Chablis I must not have found much oxidation there, if any at all. My palate memory isn't what it used to be, not that it was ever great to begin with. Any good bottles planned for New Year's Eve? We are seeing Rich & Dana Wednesday, and then two other couples Thursday, so there will definitely be some good bottles enjoyed over the couple of evenings. Take care, and continued health and happiness to you!
10/23/20, 6:13 AM - Al, in terms of time for that upside development, what would you anticipate that requiring, another 10? 20? Longer? Thanks!
10/14/20, 6:16 AM - Good morning, Bill! Hope you and Dee are well. Yes, I think these are still developing. I am trying to remember the extent to which you and I align (or don't) with Bordeaux. Based on these eight bottles, this is a Bordeaux vintage for Steve...plenty of nicely ripe fruit and no earthy/funky old world character at all. I mean, we tasted these with one of the buyers from Binny's and we all missed it. Each and every one of us said Napa cabernet and there was not one suggestion of anything else, which might be a first since we have been part of this group. So, if representative, it's a vintage for Napa cab drinkers, at least right now. I don't have many '10s, and none of these particular wines, but personally I would hold these for another five years and hope their Bordeaux heritage begins to show. If I want Napa cab, I'll just open Napa cab, right?!?!? So for me, a strong hold at the moment, perhaps checking back in around 2025 and going from there.
10/14/20, 6:09 AM - Yeah, those old Dominus and Togni wines with their old school sensibilities-some of my favorite wines. Once the unveiling began and we knew these were Bordeaux I assumed this was going to be something from PLL with those herbal/greenish elements (I am nearly always able to spot PLL in double blind lineup). I was surprised to see SM though, as I have always found that to be a much more "rustic" wine and that just wasn't the case here. Perhaps that's the vintage influence here though with the fruit masking/replacing the more rustic side of Sociando? I've finished my brief commentary on the '10s, and only have the dinner wines left to add notes for. Some winners there too, highlighted by a lovely bottle of Overture.Cheers!
10/13/20, 5:48 PM - Hi Mark. Yes, I'd say five at least, well, for my palate anyway. Here's what you don't know yet as I haven't put in the story with the full write up. Each and every one of us tasting double blind, and that includes professionals in the industry (a couple of whom have been tasting for 40+ years), thought these were Napa cabs. There was zero doubt in any of our minds that we had a flight of eight cabs in front of us. The only question was what vintage (I thought '13s). So if these eight are representative of the vintage as a whole, it's a Bordeaux vintage for Napa cab lovers, and if that sounds good to you, these can be enjoyed now with a 2-3 hour decant. Personally, I would hold 5+ years and hope for their true origin to show....I mean, if I want Napa cab I'll just open Napa cab!
9/21/20, 5:37 AM - It depends on what you like. These do gain some really fun/interesting secondary qualities as they age. If you prefer that big hedonistic fruit, you'll enjoy 'em younger. I will say that they do hold onto that big fruit for quite a while, so you could easily hold this a few more years, say 2023-2025, and the structure will have softened a bit and it will still have more than enough fruit. Here's a dinner we went to back in 2015, where there were a couple of older bottles opened. https://www.cellartracker.com/event.asp?iEvent=29662 Bottom line, with only one bottle, I'd definitely hold for a few years yet. Cheers!
9/16/20, 3:12 PM - A timely note, C, as now that it’s ten years from vintage I have a bottle in the queue and standing. Did you decant or give it any air prior to enjoying? Hope you, J and the kids are well. Cheers!
9/7/20, 7:58 AM - I never realized that was printed there. Thanks for the very helpful tip!
7/28/20, 7:38 AM - I knew this was going to draw some comments (and it should for sucking so much at that price!). Of the nine of us, one other agreed with me and found it sour. Others didn't seem to mind it as much. I've consumed a lot of wine and don't *think* this was a bad bottle. In fact, I saw that this received the same rating from Vinous that I gave it. Dunnuck seems to be the only one glowing about it, at least from what I was able to find online, and he and Suckling may as well be the same person...doling out high-90s scores like candy along a parade route. I see quite a few retailers have marked this down, and in fact, I found two bottles myself on sale back in March and pulled the trigger based on the merchant's recommendation. I now plan to open one of mine in the very near term and see what I have got. I can safely say that the couple who brought this purchased it from the same well-respected Chicago-area retailer, though likely a different location than my bottles. Hopefully you're right and this was just a one off and not showing well, but we'll soon see. Cheers!
7/28/20, 8:26 AM - Oh my, here come the defenders. I'm kidding, if just a bit. It's okay if it's not a great wine and barely even good. Our world will not change if, heaven forbid, Russell or any other "darling" winemaker falters once in a while. Is Russell infallible? No. Is he capable of making an 80-point wine? Well, yes, apparently me and the folks at Vinous certainly think so. ;) I happen to have a couple of these in the cellar and plan to pull one this weekend and see what similarities, if any, there might be. Maybe we will find that this was a one off, and perhaps we'll find that it's just not a good wine. Cheers.
7/10/20, 2:43 AM - Not trying to start anything or be a jerk, but merely correcting information- this is your typical white Bordeaux blend containing both sauvignon and semillon. According to the winery's tech sheet, it's 80/20.
7/10/20, 8:58 AM - My apologies! <embarrassed emoji> - yes, I grabbed the Petit Hauts tech sheet.
6/19/20, 8:35 AM - Well, she does have the better palate. ;p
6/18/20, 8:06 AM - It's the first time I've experienced this with JP's wines, and I go back a good ways with them. The first bottle was undrinkable- got worse as the night wore on. This bottle was drinkable, but was definitely marred by it (decanted about 30 minutes then consumed during dinner, perhaps open two hours total at most). I wouldn't attribute a sulfur issue to a retailer- I would think this is something that had to have happened before it left the winery. Hopefully there'll be something good out of the remainder of the case.
6/12/20, 7:57 AM - Hello Canoehead. My memory of the evening was that the distributor opened bottles at the start of the night. This in particular was very tight so my note was from later in the evening when I went back to retaste after this had gotten some air. There may have been half to a third of the bottle remaining at that point, I don't recall, and it might have been only an hour or two later.
5/13/20, 5:46 PM - I haven't had any Baudry since the 2005, but came across a few of these on bin end for $9 and saw your note. I suppose if they end up being a bit of a disappointment, at the price I paid they'll be much easier to swallow (or cook with). Hope you and yours are happy and healthy. Cheers!
4/18/20, 3:56 PM - Love us some Togni. Glad this showed well for you. In the near future we will be doing an eight bottle vertical for our Sunday group, though I'm in no real rush- these wines last seemingly forever (though time will tell if Lisa's last as long as her father's). Continued good health and happiness to you and Purple- hope to see you in Chicago sometime soon- it's been far too long. Cheers!
3/13/20, 3:01 AM - We have differing opinions, which is of course perfectly fine. PLL, in my opinion, does often show a green quality and is the tell tale signature in the wine that has allowed me to pick it out of a lineup numerous times, often double blind, but especially in a single blind group. For me it most often manifests in what I note as a green/herbal quality. Again, just a different opinion.
2/20/20, 4:58 AM - Hi, TSO. Still working on the notes, but the lineup included:Scavino CarobricCavalotto Bricco BoschisE Cogno RaveraVajra RaveraA Conterno BussiaColla Dardi la Rose BussiaClerico Ciabot MentinPio CesareHope to have the last couple of notes on the barolo done shortly, with the dinner wines to follow.
12/9/19, 12:12 PM - Hi, Rollerball.By double blind, I mean that I did not know the wine's identity. This bottle was ours, so I knew it would appear in one of the flights somewhere, I just didn't know where, so I tasted it "blind."For this particular group, each taster brings a bottle in a brown bag, which we group roughly from light to heavy. Then the host often times mixes things up a bit, so even if you were to bring a "lighter red" and set it at the very front of the line, it would most often get mixed in somewhere in the first flight as opposed to being the first wine in the first flight. We occasionally have themes, e.g., foreign cab sauv, but that would be our only advance knowledge of what is being tasted. I still consider that double blind since we don't know anything but the variety, excluding one country.So once the wines are arranged/randomized, we break the bottles into manageable flights (no more than six to a flight) and spend 20 minutes or so tasting the flight. We then open group discussion on the wines and flight at large, before narrowing it down to the first wine of the flight. We have discussions about that wine and we make our guesses as to what it is and it is then unveiled. We then move on to the second wine in the flight and so on. It's fun, especially because we learn each others' palates and when someone guesses correctly, they explain what tipped them off so we learn what clues to look for. It's a fun, education and humbling exercise. Hope this all makes sense and answers your questions. Cheers!
12/2/19, 2:24 AM - The bottle was not flawed- it was average at best. Three other tasters liked it better than I did. My opinion is my own. If you like the wine, that's terrific and you should be happy with it. My score is for my palate. The score stands.
11/27/19, 5:35 AM - For me, the raisin notes are very distracting and I usually have a hard time getting past them. However, the raisin on the bouquet here was subtle, and did not follow on the palate so for me the wine overall was fairly enjoyable. I agree though- I am not sure I'd hold much longer, if at all, if I owned any. Mt. Brave is usually not something in our wheelhouse so we don't purchase/cellar these wines so really don't know how well they age. The Labegorce was interesting. I thought I detected it when I pulled the corked and began decanting so I called my wife over to check it as she is highly sensitive to TCA, and she didn't pick it up. It was there, on and off, to the point where I even questioned myself as I returned/exchanged the bottle with the retailer the next day. TCA, as you know, usually gets worse the longer the wine sits, but this was still only slightly evident the next morning. In any event, I have a fresh bottle to open and check (likely to happen 12/14 at a party where several of the group will be present again) though this time I am going to decant for 12+ hours rather than 6. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, cheers!
11/25/19, 7:56 AM - It was off the list at Adelle's- really tasty from the start, popped & poured. If I had any in my cellar it'd be tough to keep my hands off of them.I spent some time chatting with Debbie. I'm planning on a couple of Maresh vineyard wines for the upcoming offline so that she can try something else from the vineyard. See you in three weeks.
7/30/19, 9:12 AM - Haggis! Good to hear form you. Hope you guys are doing well. The bottle that showed well was for one of our annual events so I remember it well. It was opened at the table and poured immediately at the start of the evening and so had a couple of hours in the glass to really open up.
4/24/19, 8:59 AM - You make mention of a longer decant- how long was this bottle decanted and/or how long would you recommend? Thank you. Cheers!
11/7/18, 7:18 PM - Go away.
9/8/18, 4:40 PM - Just grabbed a bottle of this today from Knightsbridge, and saw a familiar moniker with a TN on it...hope all is well with you guys. You're definitely missed, my friend, take care and drink well!
7/25/18, 2:48 AM - Ryan3719, clearly either (a) you are too lazy to read the entire write up and the paragraph that preceded this note describing the circumstances under which the wine was tasted, or (b) reading is simply a skill which you do not possess. Were you there to taste this bottle? No, you were not. This bottle performed to an 89, nothing more, and was clearly the fault of the host for not giving a young Monte Bello the decanting it demands. Had you taken the time to actually read what I took the time to write, this would have been evident to you. Lastly, always remember this- there are no such things as great wines, only great bottles.
1/18/18, 5:40 AM - If you say so.
10/7/17, 6:47 AM - Hello, fc. I considered this flawed because the acidity is much too high- one could smell the acid in the form of a sour/vinegary aroma (the VA- volatile acidity) and further causing the wine to be disjointed and lend sourness on the palate. Volatile acidity is most definitely a flaw, just as TCA and brettanomyces, etc., and just as with TCA, some are more sensitive to it than others.
9/25/17, 11:43 AM - Haggis! Hope you and M-R are well! Paul Draper has recently said that the 1991 still is not ready, so I am really trying to be patient with all of our bottles of Monte Bello (well, at least the ones we don't have in decent quantities). We have two bottles of this in the cellar and I'm planning on holding until 2022...unless we have a reunion, in which case I'll be sure to crack open the first one. :) Any plans to come back west for a visit?!?!?
7/27/17, 5:20 PM - Unfortunate to see mocha in your note, but not surprising. I was told their style shifted around the time frame of the '06-'08, becoming more "modern Napa" in style. One fewer of the old guard I guess. Good drinking to you, cheers!
6/12/17, 2:59 AM - Let me start by saying this- if you like the wines, continue to like them, it doesn't matter what anyone else says. To your question, no, I have no direct experience other than tasting the wines (it's present in some Cayuse too), but brettanomyces is a spoilage yeast and there are methods that can be employed to control/limit it. At these levels, it's endemic of unclean operations (see Pegau in the Rhone) and whether that's by choice, laziness or something else, I don't know.
5/26/17, 10:50 AM - Yes, that is correct. As my introduction to the flight stated, ranking was difficult because of the way these changed- and kept changing. I noted my scores (91-92, 91+ and 92...essentially the same score for my top three), and ranked the wines. As the scores were close, I grabbed the glasses and went back and forth and decided on the ranking. I didn't feel it was worthwhile to adjust the scores of three wines I had at 91+, 91-92 and 92.
12/12/16, 5:31 PM - Hi, MCanner. The restaurant was the Anvil Club in East Dundee. We go there quite a bit, but there are other restaurants we patronize that are BYOB/reasonable corkage:Liu Brothers, St CharlesThai Village, BataviaTusk Thai, BataviaE&S Seafood, St charlesMacarena Tapas, St CharlesAdelle's, WheatonCarlucci's, Downers GrovePraga, LombardFarmhouse on North, BarringtonI think that covers most of our usual haunts. Cheers!
10/31/16, 8:08 PM - Thanks for the timely note, grossie. I recently pulled a bottle from storage to check in on it, and I think I will take it back and let it rest a while yet based on your comments. Hope the family is well. Cheers!
7/31/16, 5:03 AM - The bottle had been opened the prior night for an event so I wasn't able to judge how it held up overnight. All that being said, I don't think you need to rush to drink them. I would put a drinking window of now to 2025. Cheers!
3/16/16, 6:00 AM - Firstly, nice score! I found it pretty typical. I am usually able to pick out the PLL because, for my palate, it always has a green quality that I just adore. The only reason I didn't pick it out in this line up was because I thought wine H was the PLL as it too had the green/herbal notes. I will likely finish entering the rest of the notes from this tasting tonight. Getting back to the PLL though, your mags ought to be fantastic, and yes, exactly what you want in PLL. This 750 was from a good cellar and just at the beginning of its window. I would personally hold mags for a while yet (assuming this 750 is representative), however with six, if your curiosity gets the better of you, I doubt it will be a complete waste to open now, as long as you can spend an evening with it and give it some time in the decanter. As to your other question, yes, we're in the Chicago area. We're in the western suburbs in St. Charles, but we get into the city proper often enough. If you're ever interested in an offline dinner, send me a note- we always enjoy getting together with fellow wine lovers.
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