Opened to celebrate a career milestone, but it was a weekday and didn't want to drink an entire bottle, so enjoyed from a 375ml.
I continue to be a strong proponent of half bottles, since they let you enjoy two glasses of a wine without having to open an entire bottle or use a Coravin. Plus they supposedly age faster, so are ready to drink earlier in their lives.
On first taste, needed a lot of time to open up. Stood up for two hours, then decanted.
On the nose, some strong brett, which was unfortunate. I don't know if it's bottle storage or bottle variation. For what it's worth, I tried the 2018 Monte Bello at the winery itself and that also had some strong brett on the nose. I've also had the 2013 and 2016 from the bottle and those had no issues and were incredible.
Fortunately, on the palate, a lot cleaner, tannins had time to mellow out, some nice fruit-forward notes but with more tertiary flavors as well.
I would give this a much higher score if not for the brett, since smell is a big part of enjoying wine. This was still enjoyable, but with a better nose, would have been 92+ points.
Here's to hoping the remaining half bottles have no issues.
90 points.
by rnjbond
6 Comments
What is Brett?
The brett notes would have been a plus for me! 🙂
Depends on how intense it is. In small amounts, I like it!
Brett can completely blow off within half to an hour.
It strikes me as odd that Ridge put out a wine with Brett. They run a tight operation. Then again they got dragged for smoke taint in ‘20.
But still, sure it wasn’t cork taint or something else going on?
Just had the 2014 tonight and I was also shocked by the amount of Brett in it. It was my first Monte Bello so I was a little disappointed. Maybe I’ll give the 2016 a shot.