Chateau Mouton Rothschild 2002
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Winemaker Notes
A lovely, clear and glittering ruby red of remarkable intensity, the wine has a nose that opens on generous animal notes then goes on to develop fruit aromas of blackberry and blackcurrant, combining elegant oak with a touch of minerality.
The attack is dense and rich, on still-firm, refined and very well-rounded tannins. The mid-palate reveals a powerful structure and beautiful balance between fruit and oak, displaying perfect harmony between notes of toast, mocha, blackcurrant and cherry liqueur, and leading into a long and stylish finish.
Blend: 77% Cabernet Sauvignon, 12% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Franc, 1% Petit Verdot
About the Label Artwork
Born in 1933 at Dniepropetrovsk, in what is now Ukraine, Ilya Kabakov is one of the leading figures of contemporary Russian art. He has taken American citizenship.
Trained at Moscow Art School and the V.I. Surikov Institute, he made a name for himself in the late 1950s as a graphic artist and book illustrator. But, in counterpoint to this career, pursued openly, he soon began to explore avenues considered by the Soviet authorities at the time to be too innovative, from abstraction to conceptual art. He thus became a prominent personality of underground Russian culture alongside the poets and film directors of the "conceptualist circle". From the 1980s his installations, taking as their target daily life in the USSR and a social realism he had always rejected, gradually brought him to the attention of a worldwide audience. Rather like Wagner rethinking opera as a "total art work", Kabakov developed the idea of the "total installation": objects, paintings, lighting, texts and music transport spectators into a radically different world which nevertheless refers them to a precise historical reality - or his own fantasies.
Ilya Kabakov has won many international prizes for his work, in which his wife Emilia now also collaborates; it is exhibited in leading museums in the United States, France, Germany and Spain. In 2004, a major exhibition was devoted to him at St Petersburg's Hermitage Museum.
For the label of Mouton Rothschild 2002, Kabakov expresses both his mastery of graphic art and his predilection for multidimensional space in a striking use of perspective. He has entitled his drawing "OKHO", meaning window in Russian. Behind the "pane" of the bottle, the artist shows us another world: whirling to infinity, myriads of wings trace its outlines, at the same time bearing us off joyfully towards the realm of dreams and bliss, in a transparent allegory of the magic of a great wine.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Tasted blind as a vintage comparison at the Valandraud vertical, the 2002 Mouton-Rothschild is a wine that burned brightly in its youth, though recent encounters suggest that maybe it is beginning to flag as it enters what you might call middle age. Here, it has a conservative bouquet with blackberry, cedar, warm bricks and melted tar aromas - an unfussy, uncomplicated, quite serious Pauillac bouquet. The palate is well balanced with crisp acidity. It feels lively on the entry with fine tannin, a Mouton that is nimble on its feet with a gentle grip towards the finish, which offers a satisfying aftertaste of spice and clove. It does not mirror some of the outstanding bottles I consumed within the first decade of its life, and peering into this First Growth, it is difficult to see whether it will repay those who cellar it longer. Tasted December 2016.
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Wine Spectator
Complex aromas of tobacco, cedar, berry and currants. Full-bodied, with a solid core of fruit and ripe tannins. Not as good as a barrel sample tasted earlier, but still outstanding for the vintage. Best after 2009.
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James Suckling
This shows cigar box, cedar, cassis, blackberries and some earth on the nose. It's full-bodied with dense fruit, soft tannins and a long and intense finish. Not bad for 2002. Enjoyable now but with lots of bottle age to come.
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Wine
A First Classified Growth, Château Mouton Rothschild spans 82 hectares (202 acres) of vines at Pauillac in the Médoc, planted with the classic varieties of the region: Cabernet Sauvignon (79%), Merlot (17%), Cabernet Franc (3 %), Petit Verdot (1 %). The average age of the vines is 50 years.
The estate benefits from exceptionally favourable natural conditions, in the quality of the soil, the position of its vines and their exposure to the sun. Combining respect for tradition with the latest technology, it receives meticulous attention from grape to bottle. The wine is matured in new French oak barrels.
Le Petit Mouton de Mouton Rothschild is the second wine of Château Mouton Rothschild.
The estate also comprises 6 hectares (15 acres) of sandy, gravelly soil planted with Sauvignon Blanc (51%), Semillon (40%) and Sauvignon Gris (9%), used to make its white wine, Aile d’Argent.
Brought to the pinnacle by two exceptional people, Baron Philippe de Rothschild (1902-1988) then his daughter Baroness Philippine (1933-2014), its destiny has now been taken in hand by her three children: Camille and Philippe Sereys de Rothschild, and Julien de Beaumarchais de Rothschild. True to their grandfather’s and mother’s work, all three are committed, with the same enthusiasm and determination, to perpetuating Baron Philippe’s dictum: “Live for the vine”. Almost a command, it means being there for the vineyard in good times and in hardship, serving it with skill and honouring it with art.
Château Mouton Rothschild is a place of art and beauty, famous for the spectacular vista of its great barrel hall, its remarkable vat room and its Museum of Wine in Art. Every year since 1945, the Château Mouton Rothschild label has been illustrated with an original artwork by a great contemporary artist. Dalí, César, Miró, Chagall, Warhol, Soulages, Bacon, Balthus, Tàpies, Koons and Doig are only some of the artists featured in a fascinating collection to which a new work is added each year and which makes up the Paintings for the Labels exhibition.
One of the world’s most classic and popular styles of red wine, Bordeaux-inspired blends have spread from their homeland in France to nearly every corner of the New World. Typically based on either Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot and supported by Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot, the best of these are densely hued, fragrant, full of fruit and boast a structure that begs for cellar time. Somm Secret—Blends from Bordeaux are generally earthier compared to those from the New World, which tend to be fruit-dominant.
The leader on the Left Bank in number of first growth classified producers within its boundaries, Pauillac has more than any of the other appellations, at three of the five. Chateau Lafite Rothschild and Mouton Rothschild border St. Estephe on its northern end and Chateau Latour is at Pauillac’s southern end, bordering St. Julien.
While the first growths are certainly some of the better producers of the Left Bank, today they often compete with some of the “lower ranked” producers (second, third, fourth, fifth growth) in quality and value. The Left Bank of Bordeaux subscribes to an arguably outdated method of classification that goes back to 1855. The finest chateaux in that year were judged on the basis of reputation and trading price; changes in rank since then have been miniscule at best. Today producers such as Chateau Pontet-Canet, Chateau Grand Puy-Lacoste, Chateau Lynch-Bages, among others (all fifth growth) offer some of the most outstanding wines in all of Bordeaux.
Defining characteristics of fine wines from Pauillac (i.e. Cabernet-based Bordeaux Blends) include inky and juicy blackcurrant, cedar or cigar box and plush or chalky tannins.
Layers of gravel in the Pauillac region are key to its wines’ character and quality. The layers offer excellent drainage in the relatively flat topography of the region allowing water to run off into “jalles” or streams, which subsequently flow off into the Gironde.