Montes Purple Angel 2009

Montes’ now-iconic Purple Angel (92% carmenere, 8% petit verdot) comes in a heavy, thick glass bottle, and what’s inside matches up. This is a very dense and rich wine, with an abundance of oak flavour that will need some time to integrate. But there’s also so much fruit extract and flavour concentration that this should have no difficulty in outlasting the wood domination. In the end, you’ll be left with a wine of exceptional complexity, richness, beguilingly soft texture yet structured, and marvelous complexity. Tasted January 2012. (John Szabo, MS,winealign.com)