Chateau Montelena Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2001
Cabernet Sauvignon
from Napa Valley, California
winemaker's notes:
This wine has a deep, dark color revealing its concentration and extract. Its room-filling fragrance is the pure essence of Cabernet, with ripe cassis and black cherry fruit and the signature earthiness of The Montelena Estate's complex soils. On the palate the wine is full and warm with ripe fruit flavors and layer upon layer of complexity. A velvety-soft texture is framed by a stylish tannic grip, ensuring drinking pleasure now and for many years to come.
critical acclaim:
"Saturated, deep ruby-red. Quintessential cabernet aromas of blackcurrant, black cherry, dark chocolate, licorice, black olive, mint and earth, sweetened by some roasted oak tones. Dense, supple and seamless; much more concentrated than the basic Napa Valley bottling but also more pliant from the outset, even if it will need a good six to eight years of cellaring. Old-style, classic Napa cabernet with a powerful, building finish.
Rating: 93(+?)"
93 Points
International Wine Cellar
"Montelena’s backward, elegant, complex 2001 Estate reveals a dense ruby/purple color along with foresty, earthy notes intermixed with black currant characteristics as well as sweet tannin. Always a less ripe outlier (although it contains 14% natural alcohol), it will benefit from 2-3 more years of cellaring and should keep for at least 20 more years based on the extraordinary longevity Montelena Cabernet Sauvignons possess.
Rating: 91+"
91 Points
The Wine Advocate
User Reviews
The top 3 most liked reviews for this wine.
This wine will make you apprehensive about ordering anything else. Simply put, i'm scared that i'll be dissapointed by anything else because of the sheer outstanding quality of this wine. This is, without a doubt, my favorite bottle.
A Customer - California
My husband and I drank this wine the other night for my 50th birthday. While being only 5 years old, the wine was definitely worth drinking, yet could have cellared easily for another 4-5 years.
Very smooth, with just a hint of tannin. My nose can tell a great wine from a not so good wine, and not the way you might think. Wines with too much sulfites give me an allergic reaction; my nose stuffs up after one glass. I enjoyed 3 glasses of this, and never felt a thing! The wine went great with our steaks, and particularly with the garlic-butter mushrooms. Was it worth $100 (what we paid for it 6 months ago) - YES for the special occasion it celebrated, but certainly not for every-day.
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