2020 Le Petit Mouton de Mouton Rothschild

The 2020 Le Petit Mouton has a seductive bouquet with a mixture of red and black fruit, cedar and pencil lead, seeming to gain precision in the glass—very classic in style. The palate is medium-bodied with a sweet core of cassis and blackberry fruit, very composed and very pure. A cashmere-textured finish fans out gloriously. This is a seriously fine Pauillac for long-term cellaring (written before its identity was revealed). Tasted blind at the annual Southwold tasting.

The 2020 Le Petit Mouton benefits from the fact that the grand vin this year derives almost exclusively from the estate's core gravel terraces, meaning that many parcels that were included in, for example, the 2018 Mouton ended up in the Petit Mouton in 2020. Offering up aromas of cassis, cigar wrapper and violets, it's medium to full-bodied, fleshy and enveloping, with a broad attack and a layered, concentrated mid-palate.

The 2020 Le Petit Mouton De Mouton Rothschild showed beautifully and is certainly up with the top second wines out there. In fact, it’s better than the Grand Vins of many châteaux. Mostly Cabernet Sauvignon with smaller amounts of Merlot and Cabernet Franc, aged 18 months in 50% new French oak, it offers a rich, powerful, concentrated, and medium to full-bodied style as well as ample darker currant and cassis fruits, some tobacco and spicy oak, a great mid-palate, and outstanding length on the finish. It’s approachable today yet will benefit from 3-5 years of bottle age and evolve for at least two decades.