Ch. Mouton Rothschild
1st Growth Grand Cru Classe
Pauillac
1985

The producer

Mouton-Rothschild has a long history with wines having been made on the land since Roman times. In 1853, the estate was acquired by the Rothschild family, but it was not until Baron Philippe took charge of the running of the estate in 1922 that things started to change most importantly with his tireless campaigning for the estates promotion to First Growth status.

Arguably overlooked in 1855, when the chateau was classified “only” as Second Growth, Baron Phillipe began his “First I cannot be; Second I do not deign to be; Mouton I am” campaign that placed Mouton in everybody’s mind as a deserving First Growth. Eventually promoted to First Growth in 1973 Baron Phillipe changed the song to “First I am; Second I was, but Mouton does not change.” The 1973 upgrade of Mouton-Rothschild to First Growth status is pretty much the only alteration ever to have been made to the 1855 classification.

In 1945, Baron Phillipe was also the one to start commissioning artists to design the wine labels – each vintage’s label would bear a different artists work. Artists have over the years included Salvador Dali, Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon. Pablo Picasso designed the label for the 1973 vintage. Baron Phillipe was also the one to introduce chateau bottling in 1924, at the time a true novelty in the region.

83 hectares of vines are planted with 78% Cabernet Sauvignon, 18% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc and the remainder Petit Verdot. The total production of both the Grand Vin and the second wine (‘Le Petit Mouton’, introduced in 1993) is around 25,000-30,000 bottles. Fermented in oak barrels and maturing for another 22 months in oak barrels, Mouton-Rothschild is often described as being more exotic, flamboyant and sumptuous compared to the other First Growths.  

The wine

The blend of grape varieties, for Mouton’s Grand Vin, varies a little according to vintage conditions and fruit ripeness, but usually includes a Cabernet Sauvignon proportion in the high 70%, complemented by Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. The average age of the vines are around 45 years, but some – from the Baronne Philippine plot – are close to 120 years old. Fermentation takes place in oak barrels and is followed by ageing for around 22 months in 100% new oak barrels. Mouton-Rothschild is often described as being more exotic, flamboyant, and sumptuous compared to the other First Growths, and is a wine of incredible power, opulence, and complexity.

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.