Tales from the Crypt - Culling my dad’s cellar

WINE TALK
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Welcome back to Tales from the Crypt, the Home Game!

Tonight we have a wine all the way from the right bank of the Gironde River in France. Please welcome 1999 Chateau Monbousquet!

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Our panel of physicians is checking the contestant, and has declared it “not dead!” Phew! We expected that, but you never know when the pressure is on.

We’ll be back later with more on the results.

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Honestly I get why people hate on Monbousquet. Even in a vintage like 1999 it’s pretty darned slick. That said, typicity aside, it’s quite enjoyable.

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  • 1999 Château Monbousquet - France, Bordeaux, Libournais, St. Émilion Grand Cru (6/16/2025)
    From my late father’s cellar, this is definitely modernist right-bank Bordeaux, but it’s not objectively bad wine, just a style that divides. At 26 years of age there’s still a lot of fruit, and just the barest hint of those things I prize in older Bordeaux. Hints of dried tobacco and cedar are there on the edges, but the core remains plummy fruit. Not a lot of tannin left, so it’s not clear to me what will keep this wine together with further aging, but it’s enjoyable now if you can tolerate Bordeaux that pushes the envelope.
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Monbousquet is my Bordeaux value play recommendation for friends who like Napa cab.

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Tonight’s edition is a tale of a cork that dropped into the bottle with the barest touch from the corkscrew. Certain death, right?

Nope! It’s not the mind blowing version of this wine that I shared with @Sarah_Kirschbaum and others in 2024 (also from my dad’s cellar), but it’s a really nice bottle that I am glad I opened tonight rather than laying it down until some puddle on the cellar floor let me know that something was amiss.

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Been a while but we’re back with a bittersweet edition of the Tales. Tonight it’s another bottle I gave to my dad for his birthday that he never opened. He would have loved this wine when it was young, and probably still now. It’s not so over the top as it once was, and there’s a beautiful floral top note that really surprised me in a Cabernet.

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Good son.

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I always thought to get floral notes in a Bordeaux style wine it would require more of a blend with some CF thrown in the mix. I think that must be untrue and have recently been led to believe that CS alone will throw off some floral notes in some wines - not sure how that transpires completely.

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Probably a specific clone that shows more floral. Here is a link that identifies the cab clones used but am unsure what would be in this wine.

Here is a different link that discusses clonal differences in tasting cab, two of which QC uses.

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Finished note based on two evenings.

  • 2004 Quilceda Creek Cabernet Sauvignon - USA, Washington, Columbia Valley (7/5/2025)
    From my late father’s cellar, this bottle was shockingly youthful for a 20+ year old wine. It also had a clear floral aroma when first opened that persisted for a couple of hours before fading. Not something I have often found in Cabernet Sauvignon, but in this case it added lift to an otherwise bottom heavy wine. It wasn’t as thick/heavy as in its youth, but still had a thickness to the fruit, like a compote more than just juiciness. Given the amount of stuffing in this bottle I can’t quite imagine when some developed character might start peeking through, or if it ever can penetrate the weighted blanket of fruit.
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It continues to be lots of fun to read your posts! Thanks.

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I always thought the floral aromas/tastes in Bordeaux blends came from the addition of Petit Verdot?

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Back in the cellar with another of those great mysteries of dad’s buying habits. He bought four bottles of the 2005 Domaine Robert Chevillon Bourgogne and never drank any of them. Typically for old school Chevillon, the wine is still a bit hard edged at 20 years of age, but it has some earthy/forest floor nuances that make it more interesting. Not bad at all.

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great job dad surely?
could have bought Bourgogne from any vintage close by and maybe bombed out but he nails it with the 2005 - at 20 years of age the entry level wines of the vintage are showing a smidgen of early interest :slight_smile:

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More likely he saw that I bought some, and so…