2000 Mouton

[bills]

I attended a private reception to celebrate the opening of the BC Liquor Board’s new facility at Cambie Street in Vancouver.

The feature wines were those of Mouton and Julien de Rothschild was in attendance.

They had bottles of the 2003 Mouton Cadet Blanc and the 2001 Mouton Cadet Reserve (red) which I tasted with curiosity as I hadn’t tried them in years. Not sure what the ‘reserve’ might indicate on an already inexpensive wine.

Blanc – a vague whiff of sauvignon blanc was overwhelmed by sulphur. On palate a generic white plonk, surpassed by any number of similarly priced wines from BC or Chile, much less France.

The Mouton Cadet red had a decent if simple fruit nose and that was about it – lacking on palate – just nothing much there. For a similar price the currently available Ch. Peyruad , a modest Blaye wine, just blows it away, and I am sure there are many others.

They then opened a 5 litre bottle of the 2000 grand vin, which is what all of us (about 30 ardent Bordeaux fanatics) had been waiting for.

Well first, it has a wonderful ravishing nose with loads of up front fruit and admirable complexity in the nose for such a young wine. But from there we were scratching our heads a little. The first thing that hits you on palate is acidity, and a fair bit of it, and only after the wine has aired for some time do the tannins assert themselves, and even then not as firmly as one would expect. I would not call this a heavy weight wine, more a light heavyweight, and it is already very approachable. Is it a good wine? Undoubtedly. Is it a great wine as some reviewers have opined? Not to my way of thinking unless the wine somehow blossoms forth hours later with virtues unsuspected at a mere hour and a half’s acquaintance with it. Is it worth $300 US - not to me. The maitre of the local chapter of the commanderie de Bordeaux was tasting with me and we chatted about the wine. We were pretty much of the same opinion as to weight and future development. Are we missing something here – is this really a monumental wine (Parker suggests that it needs 24 – 48 hours open)?

I consoled myself by buying a copy of Julien’s excellent large format book on the Mouton art collection and having him inscribe it for me. If I am wrong about his mother’s wine, well, I’ll just have to console myself by drinking the 1986 (and I know that I’m not wrong about that one – it’s what I rather expected the 2000 to be from its lavish reviews).

Julien, by the way, seems a very nice chap whose first love is clearly art of the conventional rather than vinous type, with a gallery in London, I believe.

[SBonner]

Unfortunately I was out of town for the Mouton event at the Cambie LCB. Thanks for the insight and comments though. How was the food that the Crocodile prepared?

Cheers,

Stephen

[dinwiddie]

Darn, for a moment there I thought you got a chance to try a Château Mouton-Rothschild, but then why would there be pourings of a $400 wine.

In the late 1920's Baron Philippe Rothschild began to discard some of the wine not worthy of carrying the name Mouton-Rothschild, and used it for the emerging Mouton-Cadet, now one of the most successful global Bordeaux brands.

[bills]

Darn, for a moment there I thought you got a chance to try a Château Mouton-Rothschild, but then why would there be pourings of a $400 wine. 

Uh - we did. That is what the 'grand vin' - 2000 - was. A jeroboam of 2000 Mouton Rothschild.

[dinwiddie]

Darn, for a moment there I thought you got a chance to try a Château Mouton-Rothschild, but then why would there be pourings of a $400 wine. 

Uh - we did. That is what the 'grand vin' - 2000 - was. A jeroboam of 2000 Mouton Rothschild.

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I'm jelious.