Chateau Mouton Rothschild

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.  

We offer the following Pauillac from Chateau Mouton Rothschild:

• Chateau Mouton Rothschild