The 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon Estate is a remarkably rich but still backward red. It will benefit from 5-8 more years of cellaring, and should last for three decades. The full-bodied, intense, dense ruby/purple-colored 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon Estate reveals a closed, reticent bouquet of minerals, creme de cassis, and spice. This rich, full-bodied effort should be going strong 20-30 years from now. I have most Montelena Cabernets in my cellar (one of my friends has all of them), but at the end of the tasting, just to prove what aging potential these wines have, we did a blind tasting of a wine I rated 93 and guessed to be a very ripe year such as 1984 or 1990. It turned out to be the 1976 Cabernet Sauvignon North Coast, an amazingly rich wine offering loads of cedar, spice box, and mature Cabernet flavors, a wonderful, sweet, fleshy mid-palate, and beautiful ripeness in the finish. This is another example of why Chateau Montelena over the last thirty years has been the most consistently fine producer of top-flight, world-class Napa Cabernet Sauvignon!Not yet released.Previously recommended: 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon Napa (90), 2003 Chardonnay (92).Tel. (707) 942-5105; Fax (707) 942-4221

This appears to be one of the great efforts from Chateau Montelena, something I think I was correct about when I gave it an “in the bottle” rating in 2006 of 95+. It is still an amazingly young wine that came from old vines on the famous St. George rootstock that did not require replanting because of the phylloxera epidemic that swept through Napa in the late 1980's and 1990's. Despite its lofty 14.4% alcohol (high by Montelena standards) and the overall flamboyance of the 2002 vintage, it needs another 4-6 years of cellaring. This young, classic Cabernet Sauvignon represents the quintessential traditional school of Napa Cabernet Sauvignon. It possesses an inky/blue/purple color in addition to a tight, but promising nose of black currants, crushed rocks, earth and spice. Rich, full-bodied, pure and brilliantly executed, with perfect harmony, this is a sensational yet forebodingly backward, youthful Cabernet Sauvignon that needs 4-6 years of cellaring and should keep another quarter of a century. Tel. (707) 942-5105; Fax (707) 942-4221

Right now this wine is strutting its stuff, showing dense, fudge-like scents of tobacco, cassis and whiffs of vanilla and coconut and flavors of blackberry with lashings of vanilla and cocoa. But like many vintages of Montelena, expect this one to shut down in another year only to reemerge as a beauty around age 10 or 12. Another classic. ——J.C.(9/1/2006)—— 93