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1989 was an early year, with flowering three weeks ahead of usual. Now at 30 years old, a floral aspect curls out of the glass, with touches of roses and peonies, followed on the palate by bilberries and blackberries, with a cigar smoke and eucalyptus finish. It’s still vigorous in its tannic structure, but it’s soft and supple enough to enjoy today. This bottle was recorked by hand at the winery last year, with five people checking every single one of the 5,000 bottles remaining at the chateau. The wines were topped up from magnums of the 1989. 3% Petit Verdot completes the blend - a variety not used in the grand vin since 1996. Drinking Window 2019 - 2040Decanter | 98 DECVery ripe, with raisin and dried fruits on the nose. You can smell the sun-dried grapes. Full-bodied, delivering firm tannins and a very fresh palate. Long and flavorful, offering currant, berries and all sorts of dark fruits, but turns lightly earthy and floral. This is a thoroughly complex wine. Just starting to really open into the mature 20-year-old wine it is, but such a great life ahead of it. Muscular.--’89/’99 Bordeaux blind retrospective (2009). Drink now.Wine Spectator | 96 WSOne of the most youthful wines of the vintage, the 1989 Léoville Las Cases unwinds in the decanter and glass with aromas of blackcurrant and pencil shavings, framed by a discrete patina from its aging in oak. Medium to full-bodied, deep and tightly wound, it’s impressively pure and vibrant, though it lacks the mid-palate plenitude of the vintage’s best wines, displaying a touch of tannic asperity on the finish. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it continue to improve with further aging, though my sense is that the Cabernet Sauvignon might have been picked a little prematurely in this vintage.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 91 RP

Hail on 1 July took 40% of the crop from half of Figeac's 40ha vineyard. Harvest ran from 23 September to 13 October. I last tasted this vintage in a vertical at the estate a few years ago, and it's every bit as good today. It's getting to that perfect moment to drink, when you just sink into it. It has a rich and complex nose of blueberries and cassis, rippled through with leather, cigar box and exotic spices. The tannins are soft and almost nutty, but this is still a vibrant wine full of life, sumptuous with great concentration.Decanter | 98 DEC(Château Figeac (St. Émilion)) The 1998 Château Figeac is one of the greatest young vintages from this property in the last twenty-five years and the wine continues to show stunning potential. It is a far cry from ready to drink, but it is getting to that stage where it is awfully tempting to start opening bottles! The deep and stellar bouquet jumps from the glass in a sappy blend of black cherries, red plums, Cuban cigar wrapper, a great base of soil tones, chocolate, still a bit of Figeac’s youthful herb tones, toasty new oak and a topnote of St. Émilion nutskin. On the palate the wine is pure, full and sappy at the core, with excellent soil signature, ripe, seamless tannins and outstanding focus and grip on the very long, complex and perfectly balanced finish. A gorgeous bottle of Figeac that still deserves at least a few more years in the cellar to really hit its apogee. (Drink between 2021-2075)John Gilman | 95 JGPretty blackberry, with black olive on the nose. Full-bodied, with fine tannins and a delicate fruit, dark chocolate and coffee aftertaste.—'88/'98 Bordeaux blind retrospective (2008). Best after 2010.Wine Spectator | 91 WSAs befitting a wine with considerable Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc in the blend, this is a stylish, mid-weight effort with an opulent, complex bouquet of licorice, Asian spices, tobacco, and fruit cake. Obvious black currants, smoke, vanillin, and new saddle leather are prominent in the wine's beautifully-knit flavors. This opulent, rich, concentrated, layered, pure, complex 1998 reveals low acidity as well as ripe tannin, suggesting it will be impossible to resist young. Anticipated maturity: now-2016.Robert Parker | 90 RPThe 1998 Figeac, now at 20 years old, was a vintage that was affected by the hailstorm during the summer. This bottle is more open than the magnum poured at the vertical in 2015, but the aromatic profile is the same with rustic red berry fruit, ferrous notes and just a touch of juniper berry. The palate is medium-bodied with solid tannin that have softened in recent years, grainy in texture with a linear, Cabernet-driven finish that denudes this Figeac the opulence of its peers. It is a fine Figeac although it would not be in the top drawer of vintages. Tasted at the château.Vinous Media | 90 VM

A candidate for a perfect score, the 2003 Montrose has been a superstar since the first time I tasted it in barrel. Showing no signs of weakening, it is an amazing wine from this fabulous terroir. It boasts a deep blue/purple color as well as a stunning perfume of blueberries, black currants, blackberries, licorice and camphor. Dense, full-bodied and rich with an unctuous texture, well-integrated, melted tannins, and a long, heady finish, this big, brawny, super-intense, gorgeous 2003 is just beginning to enter its plateau of full maturity. It should remain there for at least two decades.Robert Parker | 99 RP(Chateau Montrose) A prodigious beast of a wine that’s now starting to shed just a touch of its considerable baby fat, the 2003 Château Montrose is based on 62% Cabernet Sauvignon, 34% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc, and the rest Petit Verdot. It shows the richness of the vintage with its ripe, opulent core of fruit, yet it freshens up noticeably with time in the glass, offering currants, mulberries, smoked tobacco, minty herbs, and licorice. Full-bodied, deep, and powerful on the palate, it still has classic Bordeaux focus and structure. It’s drinking brilliantly today with a decant and has another 20-30 years of prime drinking. (Drink between 2022-2052)Jeb Dunnuck | 99 JDAfter the 2009, this is the most exciting Montrose ever made, with intense aromas and flavors of plums, blueberries, spices, tobacco and cedar. It’s full-bodied with extremely refined tannins but a dense, delicious palate. Better in 2016, but why wait?James Suckling | 97 JSGood medium-deep ruby-red. Superripe, roasted aromas of black raspberry, chocolate and licorice. Wonderfully dense, sweet and lush, with an early roundness rare for this wine. A monumental St. Estephe with almost confectionery sweetness. Wonderfully horizontal, palate-saturating wine with huge but thoroughly ripe, lush tannins. It’s hard to believe that a wine this rich and deep could be carrying just 13.2% alcohol. The only thing missing here is the floral topnote of 2005, but that’s a quibble in this baking-hot vintage, as Montrose’s cooler, water-retentive clay-rich soil handled the extreme heat and drought as well as any chateau in the Bordeaux region. The final blend is 63% cabernet sauvignon, 33% merlot, 3% cabernet franc and 1% petit verdot.Vinous Media | 96 VMThis is hard to distinguish as an ’03, as an austere, racy profile of charcoal, black currant and iron reigns. Taut and focused, with a sense of freshness from buried bay leaf and tobacco accents, this is set apart in the vintage by drive and cut. Still a bit tight. The insider’s wine in this vintage.—Blind ’01/’03/’05 Bordeaux retrospective (December 2017). Best from 2020 through 2040. 15,830 cases made. — JMWine Spectator | 95 WSThought by many tasters to be the wine of the vintage at the time of the 2004 barrel tastings. Has it retained that status? It is certainly a hugely powerful wine, monumental even. It is also finely balanced, with great dark tannins working in partnership with brooding black fruit. The question is whether it is too big, too powerful: only time will tell. Imported by Diageo Chateau & Estates.Wine Enthusiast | 95 WEA year when those cooling breezes from the estuary were essential. This displays sweeter, spicier fruit character than some years, and you can feel a more exotic style of oak. You get caramel and toffee on the nose with some dark spice on the palate, but there is a seam of menthol freshness running through it and the tannins are more than holding on. This shows the quality of Montrose in spades. 62% Cabernet Sauvignon, 34% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc, 1% Petit Verdot. Drinking Window 2017 - 2035Decanter | 92 DEC