Château Mouton Rothschild 2004

This shows lots of mulled spice, warm tobacco leaf and well-roasted cedar accents, but isn't short on fruit, offering enticing layers of red currant, plum and blackberry confiture. The long finish is riddled with sweet smoke, black tea and iron notes. A gorgeous wine from an overlooked vintage. -- Non-blind Mouton-Rothschild vertical (March 2017). Best from 2020 through 2035. 23,000 cases made.

This astoundingly good wine tied Haut-Brion for top honours in our recent horizontal tasting of the 2004 vintage. The accessible bouquet was redolent of plum, blackcurrant, and spice, with an edge of leather and gunflint. The texture was silky and dense, with a plump, velvety length that was both hedonistic and subtle. This wine was the unanimous favourite in its flight, and demonstrated a youthful character that suggests that it has another 20 or 30 years of potential ageing.

I drank this 2004 Chateau Mouton-Rothschild the other night at home with some wine producers. I decanted it only right before serving—a mistake made while concentrating on the cooking food. On the nose there were coffee and chocolate aromas with hints of vanilla. It was super fruity, and its medium body was coupled with beautifully soft tannins. This is just coming around now and it's very New World in style. Overall, a much overlooked vintage from Mouton.

The 2004 Mouton Rothschild is supple, forward and inviting. Dark cherry, plum, tobacco and grilled herbs are all pushed forward. This is an especially succulent Mouton, partly because of the high percentage of Merlot that was common during this era. Gravel, pencil shavings, smoke and cured meats add myriad shades of nuance on the powerful, explosive finish. Philippe Dhalluin told me he waited as long as possible to harvest in 2004, the driest vintage Mouton had seen up until that point. The blend is 73% Cabernet Sauvignon, 14% Merlot, 11% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot harvested between September 29 and October 15.

Still quite youthful, and even though it lacks concentration and flamboyance, the wine still has plenty to offer. Medium to full-bodied, it focuses on cedar, tobacco leaf, red currants and forest floor notes on the nose. Fresh, bright red fruits and spice-box notes on the soft, refined palate complete the finish. The wine needs another 5 years in the cellar before it moves fully into its secondary stage.

Medium ruby, a broad brightening on the rim. On the nose, fine roasted aromas, black cherries, cassis; with aeration, some wild animalistic notes. On the palate, rich, with notes of dark forest berries, vivid tannins, subtle nougat on the finish, well developed, rather lean in style.

Very dark purple, with a dark ruby rim. Powerful bouquet, scented of black cherries and mocha, intense and relatively open. On the palate, velvety, full-bodied, soft, with great primary fruit aromatics, licorice, long finish, already an enormous wine pleasure.

Barrel sample: 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot, 13% Cabernet Franc, 3% Petit Verdot. 57% of the total production became the Grand Vin. Extremely dark garnet with violet-black highlights. Expansive, warmly wafting bouquet of blackberry, cassis, and dark chocolate; the fruit feels opulent and ripe, almost creamy, showing great depth with notes of licorice and ribwort plantain, and even a hint of freshly sliced summer truffle. Juicy palate, radiating superb black-berry aromatics, soy nuances, finely saline extract, teak wood and dark mocha; the finish leaves a fine dark-chocolate bitterness (as in the 1989 vintage). A great Mouton with plenty of sex appeal, but at the moment it still can’t quite keep up with Latour and Lafite. 07: Very dark purple, darker ruby rim. Powerful bouquet, aromas of black cherries and mocha, massive and relatively open. Velvety on the palate, full, soft, with great primary fruit aromatics, shows licorice and finishes long; already fun to drink. Peace – joy – pancake. Rated 18/20 in the blind tasting. Potential: 19/20. 15: Slowly, slowly, slowly… (19/20). 17: The darkest color of all 2004 Pauillacs tasted. Dense, with almost black highlights. Périgord truffle, cassis, prunes, dark fine woods, vanilla bean, very profound, noble, and above the other wines. Firm on the palate, with concentrated extract and mega-fleshy texture, tannins still discreetly sandy showing a touch of astringency. A veritable aroma bomb. If the blind lineup had been a battle, this “Crazy-Mouton,” despite the same score, would surely have won. Crowd favorite! (19/20). 19: Extremely dark color, slight brick hue at the rim, violet-black at the core. The bouquet is crazy—quintessentially Mouton. That means lots of roast notes, dark chocolate, herbs, candied cake fruits, roasted fairground almonds, mocha, cassis, and dried blueberries. Anyone who knows Mouton well would recognize it immediately in a blind tasting. On the palate it shows clearly more berry variations, from black to red everything is possible, dark malt, dark caramel, rich in extract and still showing a discreetly demanding astringency. The flow is a bit grainy and it still jolts a little. Its underlying character suits the ideal image of the pinnacle of the 2004 vintage very well. It has potential for at least 30 years of enjoyment. (19/20).

Deep, dense, complex, and velvety bouquet with cassis, fine woods, currants, subtle licorice, and mint. A velvety, dense, multilayered palate with rich, sweet fruit, plenty of fine tannins, varied sweet aromatics, and a long, dense, creamy finish. 19/20 2020 - 2045

Candid, rich flavor, aristocratic texture, oak infinitely more refined en primeur than in the past, great length, one of the undisputed peaks of the vintage.

Logo on the cork: M A beautiful deep red, intense and slightly evolved. The nose shows ripe, deep fruit, with a hint of toast. Precise on the attack and highly aromatic on the mid-palate, the wine glides, caresses and melts away with a graceful texture. Flawless progression. Long, delicious finish. This was the first sign of Mouton’s great return to Bordeaux’s elite—what allowed me to grasp the true worth of the 2005 very quickly, right from the En Primeur tastings...

92-94 A wine that is powerful, highly extracted and intense. The chocolate flavors and serious, dry tannins go with big, fat blackberry fruits and finishing acidity.

The 2004 Mouton-Rothschild was the first vintage for Philippe Dhalluin, who was so successful in persuading the late Philippine de Rothschild to institute a stricter selection for Mouton-Rothschild. The outstanding 2004 shows delicious notes of cedarwood, Christmas fruitcake, blackcurrants and toast. The wine has remarkable concentration, medium to full body, excellent purity, hints of forest floor and underbrush, and sweet, velvety tannins. It is evolving quickly, so consume over the next 10–15 years.