2007 Chateau Montelena Cabernet Sauvignon The Montelena Estate- USA, California, Napa Valley, Calistoga (1/21/2022)
T-minus 1 day until 55, and drinking the good stuff. This is early, even from 375ml, but open and giving with plenty of ripe black fruit, some vanilla and spice shadings, and firm finishing tannins that are going to stand up to the fruit as it continues to age. Zero regrets opening one now, as it’s in a happy, boisterous place. Content to age my remaining bottles, since there is a ton of material to stand up to the evolution.
Happy (kind of) to see this note. I have a 3L of this I’ve been wanting to open for a Bottle Shock movie party sooner than later, but it seems like later would be better, but okay with a long, long decant?
Nice wine choice. Montelena was one of the first estates that started us on this wine journey, and I always enjoy reading about others who enjoy their wines.
Several years ago, my wine tasting group did a vertical of Chateau Montelena. The wines seem to age forever. It seemed like the further back we went in time (with a couple of exceptions), the better and more complex the wines got. [My favorite of that night was a 1978 Sonoma.] I think it was not that winemaking or anything like that changed, but rather just that the wines kept getting more and more mature and showing more and more notes.
Love Montelena, a personal favorite, and yes Howard, the older they become, the better they are.
So I was searching my cellar for Montelena, and discovered this:
Looked at Wine Searcher, their response:
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There’s only 55 bottles of the '78 Montelena Sonoma County CS in CellarTracker, so it’s pretty rare! As a comparison, there are over 700 bottles of the '74 Heitz Martha’s in CT.
The 78 Sonoma is still showing really well, but I still prefer the Estate to the Sonoma in 78, 77 flips them.
Still no hurry to open either if you have them.
Congratulations on the big 55. Chateau Montelena has the distinction of being the very first California Cabernet and California Chardonnay I ever tried and I loved them at first sip. Interestingly, both were in fact 2007 vintage bottles of each. I later had bottles of each from the 2008 and 2012 vintages. Always a top notch estate. Glad you’re enjoying the 07, I didn’t even realize they made half bottles. Wish they’d come up to Canada, I’d definitely buy some of those.