Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
-
Jeb Dunnuck
A Merlot-heavy blend of 82% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5% Petit Verdot, and 3% Cabernet Franc, mostly from clay and limestone soils and resting in 30% new oak with 20% foudre, the 2025 La Dame De Montrose is medium-bodied, round, and supple, with a beautiful sense of elegance. Ripe framboise, juicy currants, violets, and sappy flower nuances all shine on the nose, and it's almost impossible to resist today, with remarkable purity and gorgeous tannins.
Barrel Sample: 93-95 -
James Suckling
A brightness and freshness, with red currants and oyster shells. Medium body, with fine tannins and a crunchy, crisp finish. A blend of 82% merlot, 10% cabernet sauvignon, 5% petit verdot and 3% cabernet franc.
Barrel Sample: 93-94 -
Decanter
Incredible colour in the glass, bright pink-purple rim. Wild blue and black bramble berries with a salty tangy aspect on the nose – fresh and fragrant. Cool too. Smooth and shiny, this is sleek, really lively and upfront with such a juicy, fresh core. Quite lightly presented – definitely fine, delicate and refined with a soft edge of liquorice and clove. Really quite a hands-off style but there’s power surging through without the muscle. Quite impressive. 3.5pH. 76 IPT. 8% press. Ageing 12 months: 15% new oak, 20% foudre, 5% amphoras and the rest one-year-old barrels. 3% Cabernet Franc completes the blend.
Barrel Sample: 93 -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Unwinding in the glass with notes of dark berries, fruitcake and spices, the 2025 La Dame de Montrose is medium- to full-bodied, deep and dense, with a lively and layered core of fruit, supple tannins and a bright, sapid finish. It's a blend of 82% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5% Petit Verdot and 3% Cabernet Franc, incorporating maturation in different vessels (20% foudre and 5% amphora) and fewer rackings to maintain a more reductive profile that is better suited to the Merlot-dominant blend.
Barrel Sample: 91-93 -
Vinous
The 2025 La Dame de Montrose is an elegant, gracious wine. Crushed flowers, red-toned fruit, cinnamon and pomegranate lend tons of aromatic presence. The fruit is so bright, focused and forward. This is an especially elegant, refined Dame. The blend is Merlot-driven. Élevage is 75% in French oak barrels (15% new), 20% in foudre and 5% in amphora. –Antonio Galloni
Barrel Sample: 91-93
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.