Somm David T

Independent Sommelier/Wine Educator

9.4

My last of three.

The 05 vintage is basically perfect fruit etc…

This started a bit slow from an hour decant. It really pick up steam w/ the Waygu Ribcap.

The Bordeaux elegance & earth profound. The fruits are floral-laden. Dry blackberries, raspberries, both plum, with skin, dark cherries, dry strawberries, baked rhubarb, hints of raspberry, dark chocolate bar, light caramel, dark spice with a little heat, dry limestone. topsoil, dry riverstone, cigar box with ash, old used leather, dark forest floor with leaves, clove, touch of cinnamon, vanilla and a pinch of nutmeg sweet graphite, used charcoal, black tea, mid berry cola dark wuthering flowers, hence of lavender and old violets, perfect around acidity with a well-balanced structured, evenly tensioned finish that last minutes and lands on dry earth and spice with florals — 3 days ago

Francisco Perez

8.9

Great Grenache from France. Rhône style red that comes through. The grape is the queen in this wine. Soft but with true flavor of the varietal. Blend of old and new vintage. Glad that I bought this. I am having it with an excellent vegetarian pizza and is wonderful. — 4 years ago

Oskar Brauer

9.4

Vintage 2001 caramel flavors and taste — 5 years ago

Jason Troendle

9.4

Sweet and not too strong — 6 years ago

with Mandy

Ceenic

9.0

Super smooth — 7 years ago

Fabian Kühlhorn

9.0

Slow starter, probably needed a lot more time than I had to give it. — 7 years ago

Shay A

9.4

Happy Father’s Day! Wonderful pull by my father in law.

I’m a big fan of this winery as you don’t see them around very much. Such high quality with impeccable wine making. Slow ox for 1-2hrs. 95 merlot/5 CabFranc. Espresso and dark cocoa dusted black cherry, ripe blackberry and currant aromatics...intoxicating. So soft, yet ripe fruit, on the palate. Cherry swisher sweets, baked mixed berry figs, and still tart red and black fruit. Can’t believe how tart and ripe the fruit is even at 13yrs. Outstanding. — 7 years ago

Neville Weston

9.6

Sommelier recommended Barolo, which was definitely the right course of action picking our way through a wine list in Capri!
Excellent selection. Light, delicate, very subtle fruit notes and taste. Earthy, leathery with red fruits.
Passed our usual “test”…. we had to slow ourselves down from drinking it too fast 👌
— a month ago

with Marta

Jan de Weerd

9.8

Another amaaazing wine here in Down Under. The Basket Press only available to the ‘in’ members of Rockford winery. Rich flavors expressing from beginning to end in layers of dark, ripe fruits but firmly anchored by well rounded, soft tannins that carried the experience to a long lingering, pleasant finish. We had lunch with our friend who happened to ‘in’ 😊 with Rockford hence our opportunity to taste this wine and share it with other friends who had been admiring Rockford wines for 40 years. — 3 years ago

with Gareth, Andrea and 1 other

Bob McDonald

9.5

Consistent notes from February 2019. Molasses Caramel etc and ultra smooth. A top quality rum from Nicaragua. Great minerality from all the old lava flows in that country where the sugar cane grows. 18 years old. — 6 years ago

Dani Jensen-DeNofa

9.7

Medium yellow color. Tropical and vanilla on nose. Oak With something I can’t distinguish.. maybe some salinity? Bright pineapple. Then rich buttery creaminess. Slight vanilla into an oak finish. Slightly dry — 6 years ago

M. Christopher Roebuck

9.1

So this ChMont doesn't hold the line with the prior cab. It's solid, as always, but lacks complexity, depth, and frankly even body. This is medium. A nice smoked wood note makes its somewhat different. But otherwise, it feels underripe, and thin. It's worth laying down for a while (ask @Shay A how long) to look for you improvement. I really wanted to press to 9.2 here but couldn't.

91+ points — 7 years ago

Bill Bender

9.5

It was a slow build but this reached impressive heights. A classic being classic. — 8 years ago

GaryWEdwards

9.4

Perfumed and floral with a nice earthy blackberry thing going on. Slow bloomer drinking beautifully. Compares to ‘09 — 6 months ago

Andrew McIntyre

9.4

Boxing day treat with the wife. Pretty much the quintessential "claret." Maybe slightly faded now and on a slow path away from excellent but still lots to enjoy and i love drinking a wine with some history! Had the Lafite from the same vintage and that was slightly more my taste. Paired amazing with roast pheasant. — 3 years ago

Jim Wagonfeld

9.4

This is not your beach quaff rose. Everything written by the other reviewers on this site is true and more. A singular, incredibly complex wine the deserves the hype. Next bottles get several hours of slow ox. — 4 years ago

with Roy and Judy

Brendan Devine

9.2

Whoa! This was a surprise. Tart apple, Brie cheese. Slightly effervescent. In that ABv sweet spot as well. Drink with impunity. — 5 years ago

Mike Saviage

9.7

From a great old looking bottle with a mid shoulder fill. Cork is fully saturated and the crud under the capsule had formed a strong seal. Slow-ox’d for a few hours, then decanted for an hour or two before taken to L’Escargot in Carmel. Amber tawny rims with a reddish tawny core. Crazy nose right from the start. Notes of sweet black cherries, tobacco leaf, plums, black pepper, ash and crusty wood, pencil shavings, some just unwrapped cigar and some menthol. Silky in the mouth with firm structure and soft but present acidity. Long and memorable finish. Outstanding performance over several hours. — 6 years ago

Lindsay Corrigan

8.9

Full Strawberry nose with white pepper. Taste juicy red berry front settles down to a wash blueberry. Then at back of mouth intensity starts with flavour of roasted red peppers done over oak coals and finish cleanse of eucalyptus.🍷 — 7 years ago

Severn G

9.6

A fantastic showing!

This was a pop-and-pour bottle, I wanted to decant, but was leery it could come apart quickly...Wow I was so wrong on my presumption.

Nose has loamy-raspberry, violets, charred oak, tarry-blackberry, dehydrated cherry and plum.
Palate has plum-raspberry, 'Rutherford' dust, leather, moist soils, ripe cherry, acidity is light but present, tannins are soft but still noticable. Youthful, very long finish.

Likely bottles in pristine condition, such as this, could enjoy another 10-15 years of life. We've had 70's BV GdL's that showed more advanced than this bottle, color is still a beautiful gem red/purple, no brick at all.

We bought this many years ago, as massive fans of Freemark Abbey and Beaulieu Vineyards, we have been looking forward to the right time for this bottle. I do believe that BV used to buy Cabernet fruit from John Bosché to go into this 100% Cabernet wine, and I think that '68 might have been the last year before BV went to all estate fruit. So this is a perfect collaboration of our favorites. A truly special bottle none the less.

This bottle is why you cellar great CA Cabernet and don't drink it all on release. I think this vintage could be similar to 2013, in 50 years...

We paired this with a slow and low roasted beef sirloin roast, meat temperature was closely watched, result was a wonderful medium rare finish, sliced thinly this was a great match to the wine. — 8 years ago