Winemaker Notes
Blend: 73% Cabernet Sauvignon, 27% Merlot
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A juicy and savory red with blackberry, chocolate, dried meat and earth aromas and flavors. Medium-bodied with plenty of flavor and a forest floor aftertaste. Ripe tannins. A blend of 73% cabernet sauvignon and 27% merlot.
Barrel Sample: 95-96 -
Decanter
Fragrant blackcurrants and dried herbs on the nose. Really succulent and grippy straight away, immediately so charming and soft, almost creamy with a touch of powdery tannins – but such depth and concentration of fruit – ripe but still cool, you get flesh but freshness too. Such great construction – nothing over the top. There’s fleshy tannins, round mouthfeel but such elegance and refinement with the vein of bright, tangy, driving acidity that just carries the overall expression. So long. Brilliant. 13% press wine.
Barrel Sample: 95 -
Jeb Dunnuck
A Cabernet-dominant blend of 73% Cabernet Sauvignon and 27% Merlot, the 2025 Château Duhart-Milon opens with beautiful Pauillac aromatics of cassis and black raspberries intermixed with graphite, lead pencil, violets, and chalky minerality. Medium to full-bodied on the palate, it has a pure, graceful, seamless mouthfeel, remarkable purity, and just gorgeous tannins. It has a certain understated elegance that grows on you with time in the glass.
Barrel Sample: 93-95 -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
A blend of 73% Cabernet Sauvignon and 27% Merlot, the 2025 Duhart-Milon is a lovely classic in the making, offering up notes of wild blueberries, cassis, rose petals and orange zest, followed by a medium- to full-bodied, pure and polished palate that's lively, harmonious and suave. It checks in at a modest 12.5% alcohol.
Barrel Sample: 93-95 -
Vinous
The 2025 Duhart-Milon offers a captivating mix of brilliant red-toned fruit, blood orange, pomegranate and wild flowers. Readers will find a Duhart that bristles with energy. The purity of the flavors is just captivating. It's one of my favorite recent vintages here because of its vibrancy and textural finesse. The blend is 73% Cabernet Sauvignon and 27% Merlot, picked from early to mid-September, always a few days later than at Lafite. –Antonio Galloni
Barrel Sample: 92-94
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.