Bordeaux 2023 at Two Years: St Estèphe
As is customary I begin my series of appellation-based reports with St Estèphe, after which I will work my way south along the Médoc.
We should turn first to Château Montrose, not simply because of the quality of the wine in 2023, but also because this vintage sees the introduction the of a new cuvée, the first such change in the portfolio here since the introduction of the second wine, La Dame de Montrose, which was created by Jean-Louis Charmolüe in the 1983 vintage.
Of course, you can read about the Charmolüe era, and the creation of the second wine (and this new cuvée, as it happens), in my recently updated profile of Château Montrose.
The new cuvée is Terrasse III, and as the name suggests it is sourced from the Montrose vines on planted on the gravels of Terrace 3, which dominate the upper half of the Montrose vineyard. Terrace 3 is enviable terroir, not to be sniffed at, or to be considered in anyway ‘lesser’; it is home to the majority of cru classé vineyards, including some very prestigious sites, such as the Carruades plateau, where the vines feed into the grands vins of both Château Lafite-Rothschild and Château Mouton-Rothschild.
Terrace 4 is arguably even greater though; on this terrace we find L’Enclos, the vines which form the heart of Château Latour, and the Grand Clos, the core around which the grand vin of Château Léoville-Las-Cases is built. And the bottom half of the Montrose vineyard.
