Winemaker Notes
The wine is an intense, crimson-hued red. The complex nose reveals black fruit, blackcurrant, chocolate and roasted coffee-bean aromas. Fresh on the palate, its red fruit and toast flavors are underpinned by crisp yet silky tannins with a touch of licorice, leading into an attractively long finish.
Blend: 68% Cabernet Sauvignon, 32% Merlot
The Barrel Sample for this wine is under 14% ABV.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A dense, creamy second wine of Mouton with blueberries and hints of chocolate and black olives. It’s full-bodied with round, ripe tannins and lots of pretty fruit. Love the integration of fruit and tannins. Intense and long. 68% cabernet sauvignon and 32% merlot.
Barrel Sample: 96-97 -
Jeb Dunnuck
The 2019 Le Petit Mouton De Mouton Rothschild is one heck of a second wine and has a rare level of depth and density. A blend of 68% Cabernet Sauvignon and 32% Merlot, it reveals a dense ruby/purple hue to go with textbook Pauillac notes of cedar pencil, smoke tobacco, spice box, blackcurrants, and graphite. Deep, rich, medium to full-bodied, and beautifully balanced, it's probably better than many vintages of the Grand Vin. I absolutely love its purity of fruit, balance, and structure. It needs a healthy decant if drinking any time soon and will benefit from 4-6 years of bottle age, but it will have over two decades of longevity. Just don't tell yourself it's a second wine and you'll think you're drinking the Grand Vin. Best After 2026
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Decanter
A very moreish Petit Mouton with plump fruit and clear coffee and mocha beans - a signature of this wine and people who love its unashamed glamour will adore this vintage. It has welcome astringent tannins on the finish and overall this is delicious. There are not many 2nd wines that can truly stand on their own but this is very much one of them.
Barrel Sample: 94 -
Wine Enthusiast
This is a powerful second wine for Mouton-Rothschild. While soft and rich in feel, it offers concentrated flavors of juicy blackberry. The tannins, initially soft, show a core of dryness that balances the acidity. The wine has fine medium-term aging
Barrel Sample: 92-94 -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Le Petit Mouton is notably serious this year, offering up a rich bouquet of minty berries, cherries, licorice and toasty new oak. Medium to full-bodied, deep and concentrated, with a generous core of fruit, youthfully chewy tannins and a long, sapid finish, it will reward a bit of bottle age. Best After 2025
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Wine Spectator
Delivers a juicy core of lightly steeped black currant plum fruit that has a delightfully succulent edge, while hints of dark tobacco, warm earth and iron gently underline the perfumed finish. Approachable now, too. Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Drink now.
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.