Montes, Alpha Syrah, Colchagua Valley

ruby red, medium clarity, ruby hue Nose: raspberries, violets, dirt, tobacco, minerals, chocolate, vanilla, touch oak Pal: raspberries, dirt, tobacco, minerals, cola, chocolate, oak Feel: medium, light, savory Finish: medium T8

2005 vintage

Waited to long to drink. Past prime

2005 vintage

Absolutely excellent: decanted fr about 4 hours. Quite restrained spicy nose but huge fruit and elegant slippery tannins. Long, lovely. None left alas!

2003 vintage

Deep ruby with no sediment, this wine is mature and good to go. Brooding, complex nose of black raspberry, date and plum leading to a perfectly integrated seamless tasting. If a date, this was a stunning 25 year old Latina bikini model who shows up to dinner wearing a string bikini only. Several more years of terrific drinking ahead but unlikely to improve.

2005 vintage

The wine looks purple colored. The legs are slow. There is no sediment in the bottle. It smells like black currant (cassis), blackberry, flint, coffee, smokey bacon, bark and lead pencil. It tastes like blackberry, prune, stoniness, smokey bacon, cedar, black pepper, tar and burnt match. The body is medium/full. The wine has polished texture. The wine finishes long. The wine has medium acidity.

2005 vintage

Decanted for about 2 hours. Still dark with only a slight age edge. Intense shiraz nose. Big powerful ftuit with well structured tannins. Elegant lovely bottle. Easily has another 5 years left.

2003 vintage

Well sculpted and brimming with a bouquet of cherries, bacon, brisket, conifer, and lavender. The ripe and juicy palate is fleshy, supple, and long, offering fine concentration, good thrust, soft tannins, and layers of flavors and textures that showcase varietal nuances of garrigue and exotic spices. This is showing the first signs of maturity which gives it an added edge of complexity. Outstanding, especially with food.

2005 vintage

Still holding up well, but needs to be drank soon. Oak is strong, nice hints of spice, smooth. Overall, Montes Alpha's Syrah is always a great value.

2005 vintage

Opaque purple. Great black fruit nose w/ a hint of bacon fat. Smooth soft tannins on a full body. Nice spicy finish! Sorry it's my last bottle as it's drinking beautifully now!

2005 vintage

dark and brooding, it took a couple of hours to show its stuff. Still strong fruit, smooth tannins and a hint of glycerine in the mouth feel. Also some bacon fat.

2005 vintage

Big syrah nose - -fruit and a hint or white pepper. On the palate raspberry and pepper, still good fruit with softening tannins. Slightly hard finish. Time to finish the case

2003 vintage

Nice fruit forward of berries and wonderful color. A bit thin on the finish, however.

2005 vintage

some tannins, nice colors

2005 vintage

- Brick color. It's balanced with a medium/full body. Satin-Like texture with a medium finish.

2005 vintage

Dark chocolate, smoky deep fruit nose. Full mouth feel and clean finish. Great, somewhat unusual syrah.

2005 vintage

no notes taken but from what I remember, I was pleasantly suprised by this wine. It was a rich and complex wine with great aromatics and mouthfeel that I was not expecting from this bottling....a definite buy for me, although this is the only vintage of this wine I have had. Definitely in my wheelhouse.

2005 vintage

Looks like this is my last bottle of 2005. Enjoyed this one with grilled burgers. Another very enjoyable bottle of Chilean syrah. Now on to the 2006's.

2005 vintage

This wine showed some decline from our last one. It still tastes lovely, but it doesn't move the soul anymore.

2005 vintage

Ainda vivo em 2012. Menta, algum corpo. Pouca persistência. Delicioso, no geral.

2005 vintage

Delicious, better after it was open several hours!!

2005 vintage

Pretty dissappointed with this bottle. The nose was dull and expressionless out of the bottle and didn't open up very much in the glass. The wine was smooth but didn't present much flavor. I won't buy anymore of this wine.

2005 vintage

Very consistent with previous bottles. Chilean loam and earth with some black fruit to boot. Good as always and went well with grilled rib-eye.

2005 vintage

Opened this after dinner. Full bodied, dark red throughout, this Chilean syrah showing a lush, ample nose of cedar, dusty red earth, ripe raspberry, tobacco, tar. Impressive aromatics. In the mouth showing a full, mature grained fruit profile featuring many of the same aromatic components. Nicely structured medium to full body with ample smooth finish. Day 2 under vac-u-vin showing some loss of the detailed aromatics, what's left has fleshed out - masses of toasty oak and black cherry. #62 …

2003 vintage

- Ruby color with slow forming legs and aromas of blackberry, strawberry, molasses, black pepper and oak. It's balanced and has flavours of strawberry, strawberry jam, prune and vanilla with a medium/full body. Silky texture with a long finish.

2005 vintage

Earthy, almost musty nose, favors of earth,blueberry and a little leather. Medium finish, took a little while to open up in the glass after being decanted for an hour. Pleasant wine.

2005 vintage

Wow! After being a bit disappointed with our earlier tastings of this wine, we were amazed by its fruity, balanced flavors. This is drinking so nicely right now. Everything seemed to be there except for any hint of a defect. It seems to have a bit more life in it than the wine press suggested.

2005 vintage

A good 90 pts, very pleasant, would buy more.

2005 vintage

Give this some more time and it will be even lovelier than it is now. Drank it over several days at Mayne and it stood up very well. I was quite surprised and impressed

2005 vintage

Bery nose with tart berries up front on the palate. Soft velvet finish. Excellent Syrah. Wonderful with spicy food.

2003 vintage

Nice wine, the extra time did not hurt this bottle. Deep flavor, good nose

2003 vintage

Drinks very well. Integrated tannins, smoke, cherry, berry, coffee, if nose to reflect it's structure, it would have been rated higher. A good value wine.

2005 vintage

This was a fantastic wine when I sampled it in 2004, and is still wonderful. Dark cherry on the nose, and on the initial taste, morphing into warm ripe blackberries. Fairly soft and supple, with a little alcoholic heat. Nicely balanced and a long gradual finish. More recent vintages haven't been as rich.

2003 vintage

COLOR - a little thinner than I recall. NOSE - practically jumps out of the glass into your nostrils; outrageous. TASTE - thinner than I recall and wish for, but still present, ripe fruits that are red and black and still likely have some time to mature. This is a hotter weather Syrah than I like to drink, but this grape does well down south in the Chilean soil. And the individual hand-wrapping of the bottle in paper adds a …

2003 vintage

very good fruit. Was afraid it may be past prime, but not so. Should hold a couple more years at least

2003 vintage

This bottle has plenty of life in it, very powerful, ripe and classy.

2003 vintage

This wine has a pleasant nose. Its finish is long and smooth. Though this wine is considered to be past its prime I found it to be most enjoyable, fruity, and actually improved over the past year.

2003 vintage

I find the fruit is fading now a bit, and the alcohol is a little more pronounced than I can remember. Still very smooth and balanced.

2003 vintage

Just fabulous Chilean Syrah, optimally bottle aged and completely disagree with the drinking window, this still had plenty of life in it, probably another 5 years, wish I had more '03's - Dark, full bodied with a nose of intense plum, blackberry, cherry, spice, pepper, licorice and vanilla, very well structured, intense, yet balanced, velvety smooth on the palate with terrific length, awesome! (93 Points).

2003 vintage

Popped and poured w/a glass airator, drank from Riedel Oregon pinot noir stems. Nose of dark fruits, earth and a very nice sweet oak/ smoke aroma. This is a medium bodied wine, and the six years of bottle age have added a nice softness and length (mellowing out the tannins from bottles tasted over the last couple of years). An elegant refined wine, that I enjoyed w/griilled salmon and an organic salad.

2003 vintage

good 89 had with Shish kabob (beef)

2003 vintage

Losing its punch, little depth. Last of our stash.

2003 vintage

Nice solid simple little wine. Chocolate and dark cherries. Maybe starting to tire a bit.

2003 vintage

There's something very medicinal about the nose. Definitely some eucalyptus there, too. Flavors of chocolate and cherries. Some earthiness, as well. Firm tannins. The finish is a bit weak, though. I'm hoping this will improve with time in the glass. Salud!

2003 vintage

Much better than the last bottle we drank, lots of dark fruit and cherries, more depth to this bottle, nice finish, tannins very subdued with a hint of oak, not bad at all.

2003 vintage

A bit boozy upon opening. Given some time, dark red fruit and eucalyptus emerged on the nose. Palate displayed blackberries, pepper, earthiness and a bit of black olives towards the back of the mouth. This is an excellent bridge between an Aussie-style shiraz and Rhone syrah.

2003 vintage

Delicious blend of spice and chocolate.

2003 vintage

Decanted for an hour, on the nose lots of cherry fruit some spice. The mouth feel is medium, not silky but not harsh either. On the palate getting cherry and spice, not a lot going on here, fairly one dimensional, not a lot of complexity, the nose comes across a lot more interesting than the taste. Hour 2, flavor profile has picked up a bit, more fruit and spice onthe mid-palate, the finish is a bit tannic. I had a …

2003 vintage

Not as enamored with it as the first time . . .

2003 vintage

deep purple color, fruit-forwardstyle wine. Very strange, almost mediciny aftertaste.

2003 vintage

Very good, especially considering not my favorite varietal. Drank it a a cooler temperature than I normally would. Drinking second bottle for Turkey Day.

2003 vintage

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Montes, Alpha Syrah, Colchagua Valley

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