2006 Montrose

When I mentioned to technical director Nicolas Glumineau that I thought the 2006 Montrose had been underextracted, perhaps due to the fact that new director Jean-Bernard Delmas, who ran Chateau Haut-Brion for more than 40 years, was just getting comfortable with St. Estephe fruit, he responded that that was probably not the reason for the relative lightness of this wine. "Perhaps we picked too early," he admitted. "And 2007 was really the first year for the new team here. The biggest change with the new team is at harvest time. We're paying more attention to maturity in the vineyard. There's really a two-week delay between the harvest in the Graves and up here in St. Estephe. This year we took our time and waited for the cabernet sauvignon to ripen. Previously we picked in 12 days straight here, but in 2007 we took a full three weeks. And we feel that a daily pumpover equivalent to the volume of the wine is enough to extract smooth, silky tannins. Under the old regime, the daily pumpover here was four times the volume of the wine." Glumineau went on to describe 2007 as a delicate wine in a delicate year: supple, soft and sweet, with good vinosity.

The new owners of this fabled chateau installed Jean-Bernard Delmas, who ran Chateau Haut-Brion for more than 40 years, as director. It remains to be seen if the streak of winners made here in recent vintages under ex-regisseur Philippe de Laguarigue will continue-and if the style of Montrose will change. The 2006 struck me as a bit underextracted, at least in the context of the St. Estephe appellation-certainly well-made but correct rather than exciting. Or was this simply a function of the difficulties of the vintage in the Northern Medoc, which by most accounts received more rain than vineyards farther to the south? The merlot was harvested fairly early here, between September 18 and 22, with the cabernet coming in between September 27 and October 3. The team green-harvested the entire property in 2006 for the first time, according to Delmas. The grand vin represents a 60% selection.