Chateau Montelena: Profile and top wines

In 1976, the famous Judgement of Paris Tasting pushed Napa Valley’s Chateau Montelena into the wine world’s consciousness, bestowing lasting fame...

Chateau Montelena’s winning wine in 1976 was a Chardonnay, but the late Jim Barrett’s dream was to produce a Cabernet Sauvignon that would stand ‘shoulder to shoulder with the great first growths of Bordeaux.’ Proving he could, he thought, would take at least 50 years.

The Barrett family, sole owners since 1972, have been bragging about winning the famous tasting ever since. The story was even immortalised in the very bad 2008 film, Bottleshock.

Scroll down for Elin’s top two Montelena Cabernets from each of the last five decades

Fast forward to June 2018, when his son Bo, who now runs the winery, hosted a retrospective ‘Dream Tasting’ of 15 vintages of Cabernet (1974 to 2013) from the past five decades. All but the first two were Montelena’s Estate Cabernet from its own vineyards, which debuted in 1978. Barrett called the event, at a light-filled New York restaurant, ‘a snapshot of one winery on a fifty-year plan.’

Chateau Montelena at a glance Location: Calistoga District, Napa ValleyFounded: 1882 by Alfred Tubbs, 1972 first Barrett winesFirst Estate-bottled Cabernet Sauvignon: 1978Acres of vines: 120

Soil types: alluvial, volcanic, sedimentary

Number of bottles annually: 50,000

Year Calistoga becomes official AVA: 2010

Number of different wines produced: 6

The ivy-covered stone castle-like winery at the foot of Mt. St. Helena in Calistoga dates back to the 19^th century and to the original founder Alfred Tubbs, who made his fortune during the Gold Rush by selling rope. ‘When my father acquired the property,’ Bo Barrett recalled, ‘it had no roof or winemaking equipment.’ They immediately started replanting vineyards to Cabernet.

Montelena now produces six wines, including two Cabernets, but the Estate cuvee is the star. The wine’s characteristic savory, berry-spicy nose and flavours were fleetingly apparent even in the 1974 – though the grapes for it came from Sonoma’s Russian River and Alexander Valleys. ‘Think of it as a prototype,’ said Barrett. (When I first tasted it in 1980, I thought it was outstanding.)

Early vintages were rustic, but by the 1994 vintage Montelena had hit its winemaking stride, settling on about 24 months in French oak, with 25 to 30 percent new, de-stemming and eschewing long macerations. Later tweaks included adding grapes from a hillside vineyard to the mix.

What stood out most, for every wine in the line-up, was a commitment to balance and restraint – the Calistoga location helps. Of Napa Valley’s AVAs, it has the most extreme day-to-night temperature swings and cool afternoon Pacific breezes through the Chalk Hill Gap. This lets the grapes retain acidity and develop flavour without getting too ripe.

Surely that balance and acidity are reasons why the wines had aged so well. (Plus all were poured from magnum.) For me the standouts were 1994, 2005, and 2013.

‘Even during the apogee of the high-alcohol fruit bomb, my father was convinced that style would die,’ Barrett recalled, as he annotated each vintage’s weather and winemaking characteristics with laid-back humour and sports analogies. ‘We’re still chasing his dream.’

Elin’s top Montelena Cabernets from the last 50 years:

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