Beautiful, rich and incredibly softly textured, this is still very young. Also supremely measured and stately, with buttery tannins. The palate is just starting to show truffles and leather, but is still set against game, cassis and liquorice root. Great persistency and a real sense of lift on the finish.

This is the first vintage with the new owners. Jean-Bernard Delmas started with this vintage and drastically reduced the amount of wine going into the Grand Vin. The 2006 Montrose, 72% Cabernet Sauvignon and 28% Merlot, is deep garnet-brick in color. It rolls out of the glass with mature, ready-to-go scents of blackcurrant jelly, dried cherries, and mulberries, leading to wafts of incense, iron ore, wild thyme, and potpourri. The medium-bodied palate offers a good amount of black fruit and savory layers with a chewy texture and alluring tension, finishing long and minerally. This should age gracefully for another 15 years+. - Lisa Perrotti-Brown

A high proportion of Cabernet Sauvignon is reflected in the flavour profile, and this remains a young wine at 15 years old, but like many 2006s lacks a little generosity right now. Plenty of classic St Estephe character that is likely to follow the same ageing pattern as the 2000 - remaining stubborn for another few years, but giving great pleasure when it finally opens up. Blue and black fruits, tobacco leaf, firm tannins, black peppery, juice and slate minerality on the finish. Harvest September 18 to October 3. First year that Jean-Bernard Delmas, ex-Haut-Brion, was in charge (the Bouygues had taken over in January 2006, and he was immediately appointed CEO).

94+ The first vintage under new owner Martin Bouygueswho convinced Jean-Bernard Delmas to come out of retirement to produce this wine the 2006 Montrose is an undeniable success. A blend of approximately two-thirds Cabernet Sauvignon one-third Merlot and a tiny dollop of Petit Verdot the most dramatic difference between the 2006 and wines made by the previous administration is that Jean Delmas produces wines with sweeter silkier tannins although analytically they are as high as those found in the great Montrose vintages of the past. The 2006 is extraordinarily elegant and finesse-styled but it exhibits stunningly concentrated sweet blackberry and cassis fruit with hints of flowers and minerals. Full-bodied with a savory expansive mid-palate as well as sweet noble tannins this beauty will benefit from 3-4 years of bottle age and should drink well for 20-25+ years.

Located on one of the deep gravel promontories of the Médoc, Montrose has long been known for impenetrable wines on release. In 2006, the Charmolüe family, who had owned the vineyard since 1896, sold it to Martin Bouygues, a French construction magnate, and his brother, Oli­vier. The new owners brought in Jean Delmas, recently retired from his brilliant tenure at Haut-Brion, to direct winemaking. This first release from the new team is a lovely, fragrant cabernet, its deep earthiness and dark mushroom tones the only clues that it's a Montrose. The wine may be compressed in its structure, but it's supple and elegant, with purity and precision to its layers of currant, fennel, blueberry and blackberry. Lively acidity drives the fruit, its freshness lengthening the flavors. Built for 20 or more years of development, this young Montrose makes its beauty apparent from the outset.

Yes, this wine is tannic. To begin with it seems austere and mineral. But then the substrate of black berry juice asserts itself. The fruits are fresh rather than sweet, combining with leather, spice and a presence of new wood. Typical of Montrose, it is hard to appreciate this young, with those tannins needing to open out. But wait 10 years.

Big, powerful, dense and tannic, this is a step back into the more, strict, severe styling with a strong, strict, tannic edge. The fruit is ripe, there is concentration, but the tannins are severe, and the fruit, is on the bright, fresh side of the style range. Time could bring this around, but I am not sure it will change the style of the vintage. Lovers of old-school Cabernet Sauvignon Bordeaux blends could enjoy this more than I did. Read more at:https://www.thewinecellarinsider.com/search-wine-tasting-notes/?szSearch=2006+Montrose

Montrose is so typically Saint-Estephe in 2006, with dried spices such cardamom and cloves as well as delicate currants. Full-bodied, with firm tannins and a dense center palate. It needs another three or four years of bottle age to soften.

Tasted blind at Southwold ’06 Bordeaux tasting. This has good intensity on the nose: black dusty fruit, cedar, charcoal and scorched earth all with commendable definition. Medium-bodied palate, grippy tannins that are a little coarse, but the balanced is here, well-integrated new oak, a little austere but fanning out towards the briary finish with blackberry, tar and cedar. This Montrose deserves another 8-10 years in bottle and I suspect that by then it will deserve another couple of points.