Michael Schuster: Black red; dense, closed nose but with a clear suggestion of both ripe fruit and terroir pebbles; concentrated, generous, amply constituted wine - excellent, full-bodied balance; deep cassis and gravel flavors, very firm but fine-textured tannin; long, even, complex and powerful wine with great length. Muscular, baritone harmony with the ripeness of 1990 (but purer and more complex) and the racy classicism of 1996 (but richer). Will take a couple of decades to mature fully. Splendid Montrose. 17.5/18.

Michel Bettane and Thierry Desseauve: One of this year's most grandiose wines - as great as, if not greater than, the superb 1990 vintage, and with no loss of aromatic integrity. A classic Cabernet Sauvignon masterpiece, with blue-blooded aromas of spice, magnificently taut but dense flesh, and powerful, natural, ineffably long and noble tannins. The Grand Vin accounts for a massive 80 percent of the crop, while 11 percent goes to make Dame de Montrose, the second wine from Chateau Montrose, which is astonishingly dense and polished for a number-two wine. 19.