Winemaker Notes
Blend: 53% Merlot, 38% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6% Cabernet Franc, 3% Petit Verdot
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This second-label wine is dense like its older brother, rich in blackberry and cedar aromas. It is solid with black fruits and dense tannins.
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James Suckling
This juicy red shows cedar and berry character, spices and hints of dried roses. Medium body with a savory finish and round and easy tannins.
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Vinous
The 2021 La Dame de Montrose offers lovely immediacy in a plump, juicy style that will offer plenty of near and medium-term appeal. Technical Director Vincent Decup chose gentler extractions, which comes through in the wine's forward, supple personality. Press wines were blended back later to add structure. In 2021 La Dame is not terribly complex, but it is absolutely delicious. –Antonio Galloni
Barrel Sample: 90-92 -
Jeb Dunnuck
A blend of 53% Merlot, 38% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6% Petit Verdot, and the rest Cabernet Franc, the 2021 La Dame De Montrose is another impeccably made wine from this château, which has been playing at a First Growth level for many years now. Beautiful red cherries, currants, sappy tobacco, and some floral notes, as well as some classic Saint-Estèphe damp earth, all define the aromatics, and it's medium-bodied, with fine tannins and outstanding overall balance. Give it 2-3 years and enjoy bottles over the following decades. I love its purity of fruit.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2021 La Dame de Montrose is a worthy counterpoint to the grand vin, shedding a touch of youthful reduction in the glass to reveal aromas of dark berries and plums mingled with exotic spices, orange zest and petals. Medium to full-bodied, suave and sensual, it's layered and complete, with a lively, charming profile.
One of the world’s most classic and popular styles of red wine, Bordeaux-inspired blends have spread from their homeland in France to nearly every corner of the New World. Typically based on either Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot and supported by Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot, the best of these are densely hued, fragrant, full of fruit and boast a structure that begs for cellar time. Somm Secret—Blends from Bordeaux are generally earthier compared to those from the New World, which tend to be fruit-dominant.
Deeply colored, concentrated, and distinctive, St. Estephe is the go-to for great, age-worthy and reliable Bordeaux reds. Separated from Pauillac merely by a stream, St. Estephe is the farthest northwest of the highest classed villages of the Haut Medoc and is therefore subject to the most intense maritime influence of the Atlantic.
St. Estephe soils are rich in gravel like all of the best sites of the Haut Medoc but here the formation of gravel over clay creates a cooler atmosphere for its vines compared to those in the villages farther downstream. This results in delayed ripening and wines with higher acidity compared to the other villages.
While they can seem a bit austere when young, St. Estephe reds prove to live very long in the cellar. Traitionally dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon, many producers now add a significant proportion of Merlot to the blend, which will soften any sharp edges of the more tannic, Cabernet.
The St. Estephe village contains two second growths, Chateau Montrose and Cos d’Estournel.