Colin Hay om:
Chateau Mouton Rothschild 1er Cru
(Pauillac; 98.2% Cabernet Sauvignon, 1.8% Merlot; a final yield of 30 hl/ha, the highest of the first growths; pH 3.76; 13.1% ABV; tasted at Mouton Rothschild with Jean-Emmanuel Danjoy). The 98.2% Cabernet Sauvignon is, of course, an historic record here and the 0.2% less Merlot had a significant bearing on the identity of the final wine, Jean-Emmanuel tells me. We have, perhaps unremarkably, Cabernet cedar and Cabernet graphite in abundance! This is truly fabulous and utterly divine. It's also strikingly intimate, though not really more closed aromatically, but certainly far less 'solaire' than Le Petit Mouton. It's more serious, more cool at the core (indeed, that sense of coolness seems to radiate outwards from the core), more classical and more mirrorpool in its clarity, with that slightly sombre and almost haunting character of the vintage. The entry ('attack' would be too strong a word) is incredibly beautiful and so gentle. Mouton builds ever so slowly in the mouth due to the softness of the extraction. This is wine of incredible clarity. It imparts the sensation of layered purity: fine sheets of silk interspersed with layers of cashmere, the tannins delineating each horizontally and pixelating each vertically. A supreme wine, opulent but never demonstrative, incredibly profound and complete.
