Chateau Mouton Rothschild Premier Cru Classe, Pauillac 2004

The 2004 Mouton-Rothschild was the first vintage for Philippe Dhalluin, who successfully persuaded the late Philippine de Rothschild to institute a more strict selection with respect to Mouton-Rothschild. The outstanding 2004 exhibits delicious notes of cedarwood, Christmas fruitcake, blackcurrants and toast. The wine possesses outstanding concentration, medium to full body, excellent purity, hints of forest floor and underbrush, and sweet, velvety tannin. It is on a fast evolutionary track, so consume this over the next 10-15 years.

Drink 2014 - 2029

This astoundingly good wine tied Haut-Brion for top honours in our recent horizontal tasting of the 2004 vintage. The accessible bouquet was redolent of plum, blackcurrant, and spice, with an edge of leather and gunflint. The texture was silky and dense, with a plump, velvety length that was both hedonistic and subtle. This wine was the unanimous favourite in its flight, and demonstrated a youthful character that suggests that it has another 20 or 30 years of potential ageing.

Deep garnet-black. There’s a wonderful purity of fruit on the nose with aromas of warm blackcurrant, dark cherries, dark chocolate, anise, cinnamon and a waft of cedar. The palate is relatively rich with a medium to full body and a good amount of ripe, mouth-filling fruit. Medium+ level of velvety tannins and medium+ acidity provide a nice balance. It has a long, spicy finish.

Drink 2011 - 2030+

I drank this 2004 Chateau Mouton-Rothschild at home with some wine producers the other night. I decanted it only right before serving - a mistake made while concentrating on the cooking food. There were coffee and chocolate aromas on the nose with hints of vanilla. It was super fruity, and its medium body was coupled with beautifully soft tannins. This is just coming around now, and it's very New World in style. Overall, a much-overlooked vintage from Mouton.

The blend is 73% Cabernet Sauvignon, 14% Merlot, 11% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot harvested between September 29 and October 15.

The 2004 Mouton Rothschild is supple, forward and inviting. Dark cherry, plum, tobacco and grilled herbs are all pushed forward. This is an especially succulent Mouton, partly because of the high percentage of Merlot that was common during this era. Gravel, pencil shavings, smoke and cured meats add myriad shades of nuance to the powerful, explosive finish. Philippe Dhalluin told me he waited as long as possible to harvest in 2004, the driest vintage Mouton had seen up until that point.

Drink 2016 - 2034

Good full ruby-red. Expressive aromas of currant, coffee, dark chocolate, tobacco, mocha and smoked meat. Juicy, spicy and classically dry; rather tight and backwards for 2004 and not a particularly fleshy style, even if it's nicely sweetened by nutty oak. But this boasts excellent precision and verve, and the aromatic finishing flavours build slowly and steadily. Firm acids and tannins give this plenty of backbone for development in bottle. With extended aeration, the texture became silkier.

Tasted at the château in bottle and a week later, en magnum at the Académie du Vin dinner.

The 2004 Mouton Rothschild takes a few swirls of the glass to coalesce, slightly minty black fruit commingling with cassis and iris flower. Doesn't quite "flow" like subsequent vintages. The palate is medium-bodied with pliant tannins, fleshy on the mid-palate and concentrated in the context of the vintage. A touch of burnt toast and white pepper appears on the finish. It doesn't have the same complexity as, say, the 2008 or 2012, but it will continue to age nicely in bottle.

Drink 2024 - 2040