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Introduction to Chateau Mouton

Chateau Mouton Rothschild (Château Mouton) is located in Pauillac, Bordeaux, where three of the top five Bordeaux chateaux gather. In 1973, it was upgraded from a second winery to a first winery, becoming one of the five top wineries. Mouton Chateau is famous all over the world, so there are also many Chinese names. In the 1855 classification, it shared the First Growths with Chateau Lafite Rothschild, Chateau Latour, Chateau Margaux and Chateau Haut-Brion.

Source

The land of the Mouton vineyard was first called Motte, which means slope, the etymology of Mouton. These gently undulating slopes have very deep rock formations, up to 12 meters in some places, and have always been considered to produce the best grapes and the best wines. In 1720, Joseph de Brane established the domain of Mouton when he opened the vineyard. In the eighteenth century, the vineyard was called “Brane-Mouton”.

In 1853, when Baron Philip’s great-great-grandfather, Baron Nathaniel de Rosjord purchased Mouton Chateau, there were already 37 hectares of vineyards, mainly Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. Two years after the purchase of the winery, it was the famous 1855 Bordeaux classification, and Mouton was listed as a second-class vineyard. But at that time, the Bordeaux “Vineyard Grading Federation” also believed that Mouton was outstanding in the second class, so it was specially listed as the second class.

Create

After buying the winery, although the family has worked hard to improve the vineyard and winemaking for generations, no one has personally run the winery in Bordeaux. Until 1922, the 20-year-old Baron Philip officially took charge of the Mouton Chateau, becoming the first person in the Rothjord family to seriously manage the Chateau. Philip established a management system, improved the vineyard, created the first winery bottling line in 1924, and built a 100-meter-long oak barrel aging cellar in 1926, transforming Mouton Chateau from a rural estate when he entered into a world-class top-notch winery. winery.

Due to the high quality of Mouton wines, the prices of the wines have always been among the highest, sometimes exceeding the prices of the four top wineries. Philip proposed to upgrade Mouton Chateau and worked hard for 20 years. In 1973, Mouton was officially upgraded to a first-grade vineyard, and it was the only winery upgraded to a first-grade vineyard after the Bordeaux classification. Since then, Mouton has become one of the five top wineries in Bordeaux, France.

Overview

Chateau Mouton owned 82 hectares of vineyards in 2013, of which 77% were Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% were Cabernet Franc, 11% were Merlot and 2% were Vermont. Vineyard management is modernized, and grape planting experts are employed. The planting density is 8,500 plants per hectare, and the average age of the trees is 45 years. The harvest is hand-picked, only fully ripe grapes are picked and sent to the winery in baskets.

Fermented in oak fermenters, Mouton is one of the few Bordeaux chateaux that continues to use wood fermenters today. The general fermentation time is 21 to 31 days; then it is transferred to new oak barrels for 18 to 22 months, and the annual output is about 300,000 bottles. The history of Chateau Mouton Rothjord dates back to the period of the Bourbon dynasty. At the time, the entire Bordeaux region was unable to grow grapes because of the marshes.

The Mouton Rothjord family knew that Louis XIV liked wine, so they bought a vineyard in the southern Languedoc and started to make wine and then paid tribute to the royal family. The quality of the wine was immediately recognized by the royal family, so that for quite a while, the Sun King only drank wine made by the Mouton Rothjord family. In recognition of the loyalty of the Mouton Rothjord family to the royal family, Louis XIV, who loves art, gave Poussin’s famous painting “Bacchus” to the Mouton Rothjord family.

After Mr. Philip passed away in 1976, his daughter, the Baroness, inherited her father’s legacy and not only invited painters to design wine labels every year, but also began to display the original wine labels around the world. In 1987, the original wine label of Mouton Rothjord was exhibited in Beijing for the first time. Nine years later, Gu Gan, a Chinese painter, became the designer of Mouton Rothjord’s 1996 wine label.

Status Quo

Mouton Rothjord Chateau has become one of the most attractive places in Bordeaux. Wine drinking art lovers from all over the world regard it as a holy place in their hearts. It can not only buy the top wines that Louis XIV drank back then , you can also visit the famous Tibetan paintings and precious original wine labels of the winery. The winery selects 20 kinds of wine labels to make a set of postcards for 30 euros, which can sell hundreds of sets every day.

Patrick Léon, the sommelier, is a former winemaking laboratory manager under the supervision of the Bordeaux Agricultural Chamber of Commerce, and he is very familiar with and attaches great importance to modern winemaking technology. From this point of view, Mouton’s wine can be said to be brewed by combining thousands of years of French winemaking tradition with modern science.

Mouton’s wine art museum is very famous. This museum, which was opened in 1962 by the French Minister of Culture, Andrew Meyres, is dedicated to the collection of various wine-related artworks. It started with the collection of gold and silver tableware and gradually developed into paintings, porcelain, pottery, and glassware. , bronzes, ivory carvings, sculptures and weaving art collections. It is a great museum to appreciate wine and art.