A soft and very silky Monbousquet with wonderfully caressing texture. Full body. Delicious crushed cherries and berries. Beautiful length, too. Hard not to drink now. Better after 2024.

Drips with warmed raspberry confiture, plum sauce and blackberry pâte de fruit flavors, delivering light anise, apple wood, sweet bay leaf and black tea notes along the way. The seamless, lengthy finish has very fine detail despite its heft. Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon. Best from 2024 through 2034.

As to the red, I was blown away by the 2016 Château Monbousquet. This classic, elegant vintage plays fabulously well at this address. Beautiful blackcurrants, cassis, gravelly minerality, and chocolate all emerge from this full-bodied Saint-Emilion that has another level of purity and elegance over every other vintage I’ve tasted. It delivers loads of pleasure today and will do the same in 15 years as well. Bravo!

The wine, from this impressive estate on the Dordogne plain, is ripe with a layer of tannins over the rich berry flavors. With its spice and aromatic generous fruits, the wine is set to develop well. Drink from 2025.

The 2019 Monbousquet is packed with blackberry jam, espresso, chocolate, new leather, licorice, spice and graphite. Dark and quite deep, yet with brooding intensity, the 2019 has a ton to offer. Give it a few years to soften. Today, the tannins and overall structure are pretty imposing for a Saint-Emilion that has been much more forthcoming in the past.