2008 Monte Bello

72% Cabernet Sauvignon, 28% Merlot. Vintage marked by drought. Winter was short; two storms provided the season’s rainfall. In April, a late frost delayed the season. Temperatures soared in May and the vines set a modest crop. Harvest 26 September to 16 October. Destemmed, and left uncrushed as whole berries. Indigenous-yeast primary and secondary fermentations. Pressed at six days. 18 months in barrel (98% new air-dried American oak, 2% new French oak). Dark crimson. The first wine that smells with even a smidgeon of that damp fur/black-cherry aroma of a really ripe red wine that was what people were producing everywhere then. Big and sweet and perfectly nice but atypical Monte Bello. Just a little demandingly scrawny on the end. Horses for courses? (JR)

The 2008 Monte Bello is in a gorgeous spot right now, as the aromatics are just starting to show the complex nuances that only develop in bottle. Worn-in leather, licorice, scorched earth, savory herbs and chocolate meld into a core of intense dark fruit. Slightly angular contours hint at a bit of rusticity. (AG)

The 2008 Monte Bello is marked by the drought vintage, which not only made a more concentrated crop but also deprived the blend of all supporting varieties, as only Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot handled the dry conditions sufficiently gracefully to make the final cut. At age ten, this muscular Monte Bello is finally beginning to unwind, offering up rich aromas of black cherry, cassis, dried mountain laurel, loamy soil and burning embers. On the palate, it's full-bodied, expansive and powerful, its generous, sweetly fruited attack giving way to a taut, firm mid-palate that doesn't show as much finesse as the 2010 or 2012, concluding with a long, stony finish. Baugher observes that in its youth, the 2008 was "monolithic and more angular—a mouthful of tannin." A decade later, it's beginning to soften, but it still requires another 5 or 6 years of bottle age.