About the Wine

Château Mouton Rothschild was not originally included in the First Growths of Bordeaux, the estate has spent a large portion of its history making up for that fact. Mouton was the first producer to really take ownership of the entire wine-making process in Bordeaux. The château took wine from grapes to bottles starting in 1924. Prior to this estate bottling, the châteaux were selling wine to negociants in barrels, leaving lots of room for inconsistency. Mouton also provides some of the prettiest bottles in Bordeaux to look at, with a new artist commissioned for each vintage to design the label art.

Château Mouton Rothschild spans 90 hectares (222 acres) of vines to the north-west of Bordeaux, on the edge of the Médoc peninsula. The Château Mouton Rothschild vineyard, mostly situated on a hillock called the “Plateau de Mouton” which rises to 27m above sea-level, is planted on very deep gravelly soil with the varieties typical of the region.

Ageing: 82% Cabernet Sauvignon 16% Merlot 2% Cabernet Franc aged in new French oak barrels.

Tasting Notes: The wine has an attractive, deep and dark colour with a purple tint. The refined and elegant nose reveals fruity wild blackberry and bilberry aromas. Notes of toast, liquorice and blond tobacco then emerge to fill out a rich and complex range of aromas. The fresh, full-bodied and slightly saline attack shows great intensity, opening on smooth and creamy tannins which enfold a silky texture lifted by a touch of minerality.

Reviews

The crème de la crème from the northern Médoc is the 2015 Mouton Rothschild and this incredible wine flirts with perfection. Made from 82% Cabernet Sauvignon, 16% Merlot, and 3% Petit Verdot, this inky purple-colored effort offers sensational Cabernet flare in its crème de cassis, graphite, lead pencil shavings, floral, and Asian spice aromas and flavors. It is full-bodied, dense, and incredibly concentrated, yet still has the sexy, opulent, seductive style of the vintage front and center. It will be a candidate for perfection in 10-12 years and is going to be one of the longest-lived wines in the vintage. Hats off to Philippe Dhalluim and his team for this incredible effort that’s a step up over just about every other northern Médoc out there! ~99 Jeb Dunnuck

The 2015 Mouton-Rothschild is a blend of 82% Cabernet Sauvignon, 16% Merlot and 3% Cabernet Franc matured entirely in new oak, as usual. This represents a relatively high percentage of Merlot simply because, as winemaker Philippe Dhalluin told me, that quality was so good. I afforded my sample four to five minutes to open as it was a little reduced at first, but eventually it reveals a gorgeous, extraordinarily intense bouquet of blackberry, cassis, incense and cold slate aromas. In some ways it reminds me of Latour as much as Mouton Rothschild. The palate is medium-bodied with svelte tannin, perfectly pitched acidity, wonderful tension and impressive length. There is a strong graphite theme running through from start to finish that is little grainy and so it will require preferably a decade in cellar. But what freshness and panache here, a classic Mouton-Rothschild that will live for 50 or 60 years, not a million miles away from say, the 1986 or 2010. Expect this to settle at the top of my banded score once in bottle. ~97-99 WA