2018 Monbousquet

The 2018 Monbousquet has an attractive bouquet, quite upfront and showy, featuring blackberry, iodine and light rose petal aromas. Leaving it aside for an hour, attractive boysenberry jam scents develop. The palate is medium-bodied with grippy tannins and sour cherry flavors mixed with dark chocolate and sage. I must say that I find this dry on the finish, and it doesn’t really flesh out with aeration. I will be cautious with my score based on this showing.

Another brilliant vintage for this estate, which has been going from strength to strength over the past decade, the 2018 Château Monbousquet reveals a dense purple, opaque color as well as a rich yet lively bouquet of cassis, chocolate covered currants, new leather, and graphite. With sumptuous levels of fruit, full -bodied richness, and ample mid-palate depth, it's the purity of fruit as well as the quality of the tannins that have brought this cuvée up another notch. Readers are going to love this cuvée, and it should keep for 15-20 years.