2023 Aile d'Argent Blanc, Château Mouton Rothschild, Bordeaux

The 2023 Aile d’Argent contains a little more Sémillon than usual (44.5%) to add texture to the blend. It has a lovely bouquet of grapefruit and hints of lime cordial, chamomile, and lanolin. The palate is very well balanced with a fine bead of acidity, fresh and focused, with just a slight bitter lemon note imparting tension. A hint of ginger rises on the aftertaste. Superb.

Winemaker Emmanuel Danjoy and co-owner Philippe Sereys de Rothschild were on hand to guide me through their 2023s at Mouton-Rothschild. “We started picking on September 7, and then for the next two weeks, we just picked the Merlot, Cabernet Franc and young Cabernet Sauvignon blocks, so by September 23, we had only picked one-third of the crop,” Danjoy tells me. “So, all the Cabernet Sauvignon was picked in the final week of September. The vines relaxed after the September showers, giving us more polished tannins. This year, we used slightly less pressed wine as we had lots of tannins from the skin to choose from.”

Drink 2026 - 2038

Neal Martin, Vinous.com (April 2024)