Chateau Montrose a classy choice for Super Bowl and long after

Occasion: For the Super Bowl on Sunday, you can pop this $90 bottle of top-class wine instead of spending north of $7,000 per ticket to go see it live. Chateau Montrose 2008 is from Bordeaux, France, and is considered one of the top wines from there, meaning it is also among the best in the world. You would usually pay a lot more than $90 for it, so it is a great value here. Since the 2008 vintage was excellent in Bordeaux, you're getting an amazing keeper of a wine. It can be served with many meat dishes, but something as simple as a sirloin steak with parsley butter might just do the trick.

Wine: Chateau Montrose

Grapes: Cabernet sauvignon (65 percent), merlot (30 percent), cabernet franc (4 percent), petit verdot (1 percent)

Region: St. Estephe, Bordeaux, France

Vintage: 2008

In the glass: Chateau Montrose is a deeply opaque blood-red color with ruby-red streaks going out into a deep crimson rim definition with medium-high viscosity.

On the nose: This is a really classy nose that incorporates everything the Left Bank in Bordeaux is all about. There is, first of all, a freshness that would lead one to believe that there is petit verdot in the blend. However, this is more of a eucalyptus minty character that lays the foundation for the super ripe and extracted blackberry nectar that follows. Then comes the cassis, coffee, elderberry juice and lovely earthy, gravelly notes from the soil in which the vines grow.

On the palate: The wine is fairly restrained at first — it needs about two hours of decanting if you're going to drink it now — then it opens up to reveal lovely soft crushed black fruit, meaty cherry components, minerals and a firm tannin structure. The midpalate is laced with cassis and blackberry fruit in the classic sense and then there is a long supple finish where the wine again shows its relative youth, but lingers with soft licorice for 30-plus seconds. It's a tremendous wine with another 25 to 30 years to go easily.

Price: $89.99

Availability: Lee's Discount Liquor

— Gil Lempert-Schwarz's wine column appears on Wednesdays. Write him at P.O. Box 50749, Henderson, NV 89106-0749, or email him at gil@winevegas.com