Andrew Jefford | Dark, dense, brooding black-red. A commanding aromatic profile, though it needs plenty of air to get it lifted and expressive: black fruits of grand complexity and sobriety, both fresh yet almost beefy, too, and with notes of damp clay, pollen, Havana leaf, incense, and wild mushroom. Clearly an authoritative wine on its aromatic profile alone, as well as seamless, long, harmonious, and haunting. Super freshness, grandeur, and fruit drama on the palate in this complete, dignified, unstrenuously authoritative wine. You’ll find (at this stage) a great wall of blackcurrant, plum, and sloe fruits, supported by ample fine-grained tannins and with ringing concentration. There’s nothing flamboyant or ostentatious about it at all. Pure, deep, satisfying: a kind of essence of the Left Bank. Don’t expect to be seduced... but the deepest satisfactions are here. | 96

Michael Schuster | Dense, blackcurrant ripe, lightly gravelly nose, full of promise; a rich, firmly tannic, medium-full wine; long and racy to taste, very tenacious across the palate, full of crisply ripe fruit, long, complex, and mouthcoating, and very aromatically persistent to finish. Great, classy, long-term Montrose. Will need many years, but be very satisfying in maturity. 2032–50+. | 94