TN: 2005 Chateau Montelena Cabernet Sauvignon The Montelena Estate

WINE TALK
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2005 Chateau Montelena Cabernet Sauvignon The Montelena Estate - USA, California, Napa Valley (4/4/2014)
Served blind. Opened about 90 minutes prior to the tasting. What a deliciously balanced Cabernet. Dark fruit, a bit of mocha, some warm, dried herbs and a hint of finishing spice (wood spie?) made this interesting from first sip to last. I went back to it a couple of hours later, and it had fleshed out even more. There is tannin present, but it is in the background and quite suave. Fantastic.

Posted from CellarTracker

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Bad person [swearing.gif] . Because of you, I may actually pull it from storage even though I have no space in the micro cellar, whatsoever. [wink.gif]

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I had this in January 2013 and wholeheartedly agree that it is fantastic. I bought two more bottles a couple days later. I had decanted it 3 hours before drinking, and drank over 4 hours after that, and it was still going strong

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Y’all are a bad influence… [swearing.gif]


2005 Chateau Montelena Cabernet Sauvignon The Montelena Estate - USA, California, Napa Valley (5/9/2014)
It’s been on the test list for a while…Opened it for a Friday night dinner at home. On the color–Dark, very purple dark. Almost dark blue. Small taste for Pnp… very good(!) but felt a bit close. So, we poured two glasses and left it for 30 minutes. Then- dark and berry fruits (currant is well noted, a bit of strawberry), dry fruits on the nose, a hint of cedar and oak (the oak developed with more time in the glass), a little vanilla, and secondary- dry herbs and some little spice on the background that got stronger as the wine ‘opened’ up. (especially the spicy background, very ‘pepperish’). It worked very well with our dinner (different meats, mainly lamb and rice based, small steak). We did notice little presence of sediment in the bottle.
We assume it needs more decanting before drinking and we have little less than 1/4 bottle left to test this evening (stayed overnight in the cellar). I would say it is well balanced and probably would taste even better tonight, but I will come back to report [cheers.gif]

Postscript day 2: Came back to report, that it is as good, and even better if you give it extra 30 minutes in the glass. It starts fading abit after an hour. So the overall evaluation is that slight decant time is needed. YMMV

(93-94. Maybe more 93? maybe more 94?) (94 pts.)

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Everything considered, I think this is my favorite CA cab. Love this wine

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I have to admit (and hopefully I won’t be banned for that…) that we had a little left that was already fading out, but it made great berry sauce. I doubt we’d have any leftover next time we open a bottle