2022 - Mouton Rothschild, Pauillac

Inky colour, cassis, cocoa bean, cocoa dusting, crushed rose petals, juice, pep, focus and crystalline character, a serious wine that will power for decades, intense and concentrated but with an oyster shell minerality, delicious quality. A great example of how brilliant Cabernet Sauvignon can be in this part of the world, and why it sets the benchmark globally. This is unquestionably one of the wines of the vintage. Jean-Emmanuel Danjoy director. 49% of production in the Grand Vin, 27% Petit Mouton. 100% new barrels for ageing, harvest September 1 to 26.

The 2022 Mouton Rothschild has a very expressive, floral bouquet that suggests Margaux, with fabulous delineation and focus. It just seems to billow from the glass. The palate is velvety smooth, with fine acidity and a touch of graphite infusing the black fruit. Restrained and, paradoxically, intense on the finish, this lingers wonderfully in the glass. Deeply impressive. Tasted blind at the Southwold tasting in London.

The blend is 92% Cabernet Sauvignon and 8% Merlot, and the élevage was in 100% new oak for 18 months. A glorious nose, so pure, with powdered chalk, incense and sandalwood, with a little dark curranty fruit lingering behind it all, as well as a fragrant little lift of mint and white flowers. A beautiful palate, polished and complete, filling every corner of the mouth with polished dark blackcurrant fruits, damson, olive and liquorice, with gentle seams of tobacco and toast, with a very complete and deeply buried core of tightly knit tannins which provide a beautiful structural frame for this dark fruit, while remaining demurely in the background. This is just beautiful, so complete, with spine-tingling integration and harmony, and such finesse of structure. So long too, those tobacco and cedar notes intertwined here with the long, tight-knit tannins. A fabulous Mouton, with brilliant potential;it seems a fitting tribute to Baron Philippe who arrived at the estate in 1922, as depicted on 2022 label art. The alcohol is 13.82% on analysis, and 14% on the label.

The 2022 Mouton Rothschild is one of the most muscular, almost brutally powerful wines of the vintage. Unfurling in the glass with aromas of dark berries, plums and sweet crème de cassis mingled with notions of espresso roast, pencil lead and petroleum jelly, it's full-bodied, dense and concentrated, with huge reserves of tannin and fruit. A blend of 92% Cabernet Sauvignon and 8% Merlot that represents 49% of the estate's production, this is a prodigious Mouton that's built for the cellar.

Tasted blind. Deeper crimson than most. Nose is really buried! Savoury and saline and mineral. Not nearly ready but with masses of ambition. Tannins are not ridiculous but it’s just backward. (JR)