Château Clerc Milon
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Château Clerc Milon is a 5ième Grand Cru Classé de Pauillac that is closely associated with the Mouton-Rothschild estate and also belongs to its owner family. In recent years, the wine has gained even more independence and class.
Although the Clerc Milon estate has been owned by the Rothschild family for half a century, it bears the name of the original founding Clerc family, who acquired it after the French Revolution. In 1850, the name "Milon" was added after a small neighbouring hamlet. In the 1855 classification, Clerc Milon was given the rank of a fifth growth. in 1970, the estate passed to Baron Philippe de Rothschild, who was convinced of the quality of the vineyard. He brought it into excellent condition, but fortunately left the old vines standing. These date back to a time before only clonal selections were planted. This means a great genetic diversity and also plantings of Cabernet from 1904 and the rare Carménère from 1947 (ten per cent of the total Carménère occurrence in Bordeaux).
For a long time, the wine was aged in the cellar of Château Mouton-Rothschild due to the lack of its own building, which earned it the reputation of being a second wine, although it never was. To strengthen its independence, Philippine de Rothschild had its own barrel cellar and fermentation cellar built between 2007 and 2011. Jean-Emmanuel Danjoy, who managed the winery from 2009 to 2020 and previously worked for Rothschild at Opus One in California, made many other adjustments so that the wines are now better than ever before and, according to critics, are actually at the level of a 3ième Grand Cru.
The Grand Vin is always very juicy, aromatically complex, powerful and ageable. It comes from a vineyard of 41 hectares, 80% of which is used for the Clerc Milon and 20% for the Pastourelle de Clerc Milon. The vineyard is planted with 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 37% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Franc, 2% Petit Verdot and 1% Carménère and is now largely cultivated organically and biodynamically. In addition, not only have the plum, apple and peach trees that were once commonplace been replanted in the vineyard, but also several hundred metres of hedges and bushes. Due to the nature of the soil, with a lot of clay in the topsoil, the wines mature more slowly than the Rothschilds' other wines. They should be given a few years to mature.
© Image: Château Clerc Milon
