2006 Ridge Monte Bello

68% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Merlot, 10% Petit Verdot, 2% Cabernet Franc. Winter was wet and cold through April, but May’s warm weather let the vines set a full crop. Summer was unusually warm; picking began on September 18, ahead of schedule, though a cool October slowed ripening. Harvest 18 September to 20 October. Gentle destemming, no crushing. (In 36 separately fermented lots, roughly half the berries remained unbroken.) Indigenous-yeast primary and secondary fermentations. Pressed at eight days on average. 18 months in barrel (97% new air-dried American oak, 3% new French oak). Bright dark garnet with real lift on the nose. Love the savoury notes as well the ripeness. So appetising! Quite a contrast to the 2008. Long and classic. Monte Bello at its best for current drinking? Very, very long. (JR)

The 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Monte Bello comes from a warmer, generous year and is 68% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Merlot, 10% Petite Verdot, and the balance Cabernet Franc. It’s still youthfully colored and has classic Cabernet notes of crème de cassis, lead pencil, and vanilla oak. This medium to full-bodied effort is just now at the early stages of maturity and is silky, graceful, and elegant on the palate, with its still-present structure beautifully integrated into the wine. You can safely crack bottles any time over the coming two decades.

As it approaches age twelve, the 2006 Monte Bello is still quite reserved on the nose and on the palate, unwinding in the glass with a bouquet of cassis, cherries, pencil lead, dark chocolate, cigar box and dried rose petal. On the palate, it's full-bodied, layered and still firmly structured, carrying considerable extract and concluding with chalky grip. Rich, concentrated and powerful, the raw materials are very impressive but they're still wrapped up in some formidable structure. Eric Baugher describes the 2006 Monte Bello as "a sleeper vintage: backward and tannic when it was young, and released in a challenging economy," and that's the case today. Like the 1995 vintage, I suspect this will be a Monte Bello that really hits its stride at age 20 rather than age ten, but patient consumers with time on their side should give it serious consideration.