Château Mouton Rothschild vertical: 1993 – 1999

It’s rare to have the opportunity to do a vertical tasting of a First Growth Bordeaux, and even more so when the youngest of the wines is over two decades old.

So, this tasting of seven vintages of Château Mouton-Rothschild – from 1993 to 1999 – was too good to miss, and provided a fascinating insight into how great Bordeaux from the end of the last millennium is shaping up.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for Château Mouton Rothschild 1993 – 1997

The tasting

The tasting was organised by the individual, and catchily named, Red Herring Wine Club, which comprises a small group of wine lovers, led by fellow Master of Wine Conal Gregory. I was delighted to be invited to lead the tutored tasting but took the opportunity to try the wines before the evening commenced. The wines were, in nearly every case, an impressive bunch.

To start the evening, Mouton’s white wine, Aile d’Argent 2013, was poured as the support act before the ‘main event’ – tasting note below.

The seven vintages of the grand vin had been opened and double-decanted mid-afternoon, and were tasted from newest to oldest, starting with 1999 and finishing with the controversially labelled 1993.

The 1990s

The decade of the 1990s was certainly not necessarily Bordeaux’s finest, although it did commence with the memorable 1990. Howver, it should be noted that the 1990 vintage of Mouton initially received mixed reviews.

1991 was a year where terrible frosts almost wiped out the harvest across much of Bordeaux. Those parts of the Haut-Medoc near the Gironde escaped the worst damage, but other areas were decimated.

1992, 1993 and 1994 were variable growing seasons with rain a regular feature – so much so that, at the time, the only redeeming feature of 1993 and 1994 was that there was less rain than the truly wretched 1992.

Rain, and variable conditions, also shaped 1997 and 1999, leaving just three vintages aspiring to top-quality.

1998 was destined for greatness before the (almost) inevitable rain damaged prospects at harvest time in the Médoc.

1995 and 1996 were fine vintages but are juxtaposed – 1995 favoured Merlot, with a hot summer before heavy rains in late-September/October, while 1996 was hot and dry in July/August before heavy rain in early September impacted the Merlot.

In 1996 the Cabernet vintage was saved by a glorious October. 1995 was a year for the earlier-ripening Merlot to shine, with 1996 being a classic vintage for Cabernet Sauvignon.

But is this how the tasting panned out?

Results

A number of key points emerged from the tasting. All of the red wines were labelled at 12.5% alcohol, a step-back in time to the days when Bordeaux was regularly bottled at 11.5 or 12 degrees. This was a welcome change from the fruit-forward, higher-alcohol wines found in many top chateaux in the past 15 years, with freshness and poise much more evident than power.

One is paying for class and breeding here, not heft, and the wines certainly delivered in that respect. The classic Mouton-Rothschild characters – intense cassis, exotic spices and flamboyant, polished oak – were still evident, although somewhat muted by time in bottle.

None of the wines were past their best, with 1993 even managing to show enough fruit to suggest another five years careful storage would not be an issue.

The top vintages – 1995/1996 – still have a good future ahead with potential to improve.

The other impressive feature was the overall level of consistency with all vintages (bar 1998) very uniform across the bottles.

The wines had not all been purchased from the same source, so to see such even quality was a testament to the work put in at the château. The only blot on the landscape was 1998, with one bottled corked and two more edgy and not at their best. As mentioned, 1998 was a difficult vintage in the Haut-Médoc but I suspect the issues here were not vintage related but specific to the particular bottles.

As the photograph shows, a range of Mouton-Rothschild is a magnificent thing to see, with the various artistic themes on display. On the night, the 1999 created by the artist Raymond Savignac garnered the most plaudits for attractiveness of label, even if the wine was not the best of the flight.

Château Mouton-Rothschild is never going to be a cheap wine, and this was reflected in the prices. All of the vintages command a price of at least £400 per bottle, with 1996 available in excess of £500 per bottle. But a number of these wines stack up in quality and value terms against more recent vintages such as 2004, 2007 and 2013.

Fine wines with undeniable class and thoroughbred quality.

See tasting notes and scores for the Château Mouton Rothschild wines

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