- 2009 Chateau Montelena Cabernet Sauvignon The Montelena Estate - USA, California, Napa Valley, Calistoga (7/3/2024)
Fifteen years from the vintage seemed like a good time to do a first check in. It was indeed. Still with decades of positive runway it is nevertheless drinking well in an early stage of maturity. Soft? Not at all. There’s plenty of structure and fruit to go on for at least ten years before it hits some stage of truly developed maturity, and twenty might be better. But right now it’s a ripe but classically styled California Cabernet that looks to the future while giving a nod to the past. It’s clearly Montelena, just early days, even at fifteen.
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