Chateau Montelena Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 1987

Charlie Beatty

Buyer wineworksonline.com

1987 was a very good year. Imagine 28 years ago this Awesome Cab was made. Showing beautiful ! Silky, with loads of fruit. Tannin structure has dissipated . Beautiful . CB 95+

Robert Cunningham

Wine Educator DeVinimus, Wine Workshop

Big, rich classically made terroir driven wine. A powerful attack, full mouth feel and moderately long finish

Pam Starr

Owner/Winemaker Crocker & Starr Wines

87. Started slow and opens up and keeps on giving. Bottle bouquet plum pencil lead. The number 2 pencil.

Mike Saviage

From magnum decanted for 3 hours. Deep purple red. Opaque. Nose of black fruit, iron, gravel, mocha and some herbal funk. Rich and powerful in the mouth. Big and bold structure. This still has years of life ahead of it. .

Yianni Stoner

Oxidized red fruits

Sarah Boyle Robert

Sage and rosemary but still with a lot of red fruit. Overall delicious.

David Souza

'87 still holds up!

Mike Saviage

Maybe my 10th bottle of this well made wine. A go-to and reference Cal Cab. Drinking well right now but will last many more years.

Doug Powers

Black currants, rich, ripe aromas and flavors, not very tannic, but certainly not at all past it, very solid Montelena Cab!!

Mark Flesher

Served blind to a nice group of novices vs. self-professed experts tonight. And I will say that this one was right on the money for what it was. The nose? Dense, fruit-packed with a hint of brett and soil and earth and flowers? Really nice combo of perfectly aged Napa cab with "huh, are you sure you want to drink this one so young?" Napa cab. The entry of this wine was silky, rounded, blackberry and black licorice. Hint of herbs, white flowers, and rhubarb in the middle. The finish showed just about zero tannin -- all had integrated, and the wine (as it opened) showed a slightly shorter finish. All in all, really wonderful wine. But this is the time to drink this one. The 2002-2021 CT drinking window is shockingly on target. I still have one more of these, but sentimental value will probably keep it around way too long.....even though it will probably decline little by little over the next year. Honestly though, you could probably get another 10 years out of this wine.