What is Mouton, Really?
Moutons or sheep are quadrupedal, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Like all ruminants, sheep are members of the order Artiodactyla, the even-toed ungulates. Although the name sheep applies to many species in the genus Ovis, in everyday usage it almost always refers to Ovis aries.
I personally would not have anything older than 12 years as it will be tough as hell (or dead). The younger the better, in my book.
What did Mouton say to his wife?
I love ewe
Please post warnings before you post these.
Mark, his location says Florida. How much more warning do you need? 
How was it en primeur?
The shear gaul of this joke!
I canât tell wether or not I like these puns but itâs a wool lot of work coming up with new ones.
That table is a good contribution. Thank you.
I do have a concern regarding using ranking as opposed to scores (or converted scores). There are some wines there that share very few characteristics other than being in the same region. To use the most famous ones, the 2015 Latour has 2.6% Merlot and goes up to 9% in 2017. Contemporary Petrus is 100% Merlot in every vintage. Is it really a fair comparison to rank them as opposed to comparing raw scores if we must compare them at all? People will jump down your throat around here if you compare a Left-Bank Bordeaux to a Napa Cab, and those usually share at least half the varietal. But aside from that, ranking erases the nuance of the scoring.
Say, for argumentâs sake, that wine A always gets a 98. And say, over the 6 years discussed, Wine B gets 93, 100, 91, 99, 100, 97.
Rankings are thus:
Wine A: 1, 2, 1, 2, 2, 1 = 1.5
Wine B: 2, 1, 2, 1, 1, 2 = 1.5
I think most people would agree however that Wine A is a generally better wine, which would be apparent if using average scores:
Wine A: 98
Wine B: 96.5
Of course, using scores has the scale conversion problem but Iâm guessing you must have addressed that somehow to achieve the rankings in the first place. Also newer vintages tend to avoid the potential strikes from slower scorers like Molesworth and Gilman (Iâm not sure if you included them in the older ones) and could skew the averages in favor of wines disfavored by the slower scorers (looking at Montrose in particular for example) or against those favored by them (maybe VCC?).
I have no horse in this race because I donât make the sort of money you guys apparently to have tasted multiple vintages of all or all but one of all these wines. But I want to have a horse. Iâm looking at this thread in rapt attention to determine which of the few wines I might afford on this list I should get now in order to follow it for a few decades. I almost pulled the trigger on a few bottles of 2019 Pichon Lalande (or Pichon Comtesse as they apparently prefer now) based on Jeffâs and Nealâs notes (including the strategic replantings since 2012 and the quality explosion there since 2016) and Gilmanâs and Williamâs general endorsement of the Chateau these days. Your table seems to ding them a bit though.
Mouton is definitely a first growth despite its variation by bottle or vintage. No second growth scales the heights that Mouton can reach. Comparisons are somewhat nebulous.
Moutonâs strongest era was the Philippe Dhalluin era, just ended. In terms of three consecutive vintages it probably doesnât get much better than 2008, 2009, 2010 Mouton, all three very strong contenders for wine of the vintage.
His 2016 is widely recognised as the wine of the greatest modern Bordeaux vintage. He definitely cemented Mouton as a bona fide FG, nobody should be in any doubt about that.
I thought it was an art museum, with every year a different painting!
Precisely. The classification is about potential of site- and in that respect Mouton is very clearly a first growth. Good as it can be, a wine like Chateau Palmer will never have the breed or intricacy of Mouton. Who is performing well at a given point in terms of making a technically quality product is an important part of the buying decision- but completely unrelated to rankings based on site potential.
For my part I love Mouton- and as famed as the 2016 is, donât miss out on the 2015 either. Gorgeous wine. Mouton is on a real tear lately.
As for overall long term performance- I find Margaux the weakest of the firsts. Mouton has had some curious moments- but more out of a bit of experimentation and chance-taking than lack of skill or lack of investment/due care.
I see your point. But that is less of a problem in a bigger group like the best 50 Bordeauxs (because Wine B would only be ranked 34 or 44 in vintage 1 and 3, which would bring his overall rank quite a bit down, while Wine A with its constant 98 would always be top 5 or 10). As you rightly assumed I have the average ratings too and the list doesnât look much different (some small changes with wines going up or down a rank are possible). Additionally, you get the granularity here with every rank in every vintage. That should help to make an informed decision (look at Haut Brion, âonlyâ Nr 12 overall but thanks to all vintages ranks it is instantly visible that without the 2017 vintage and the 51st rank that year, Haut Brion would better - in fact it would lead to a shared 5th rank.
To your other point: Bordeaux is Bordeaux and will be compared to Bordeaux. Of course right bank and left bank wines are different and not everybody likes everything but nobody will be down my troath for comparing Bdx with Bdx.
A 13th place in 2019 with an average rating 98.09 pts is quite great. I wouldnât wait. And also overall a 18th place for Pichon is quite great and seems accurate. Donât forget, all these wines are world class! Weâre talking about the pinnacle of the pinnacle of the pinnacle of Bordeaux wines and nuances between them (the average score of all vintages for Pichon as #18 and Lafleur as #1 is less than 1.5 pts).
PLL is some of the best Bordeaux Iâve had from the 80s, and not just the 82 - I served a bunch of the 86 for my 40th and it was great. IMHO, until they sadly ripped it out, the Merlot grown in PLLâs vineyards was some of the best Merlot on the planet (with the caveat that Iâve not had Petrus).
This is jelling as the CW, not without some confirmation bias since everyone knows what the published scores are, but for my taste as good as the Mouton was I had Lafite clearly ahead, and even preferred Baron and Montrose. I had Mouton tied with LLC and Cos.
The 1855 classification wasnât based on âsite potential,â it was based on the prices at which the wines were selling at the time.
A big glass of a friendâs 1986 Mouton just a few years ago might be one of the two best wines Iâve ever had, although I gave my son a birth year $100 1989 Haut Brion I wouldnât dream of asking him to open with little old me. So I bought and opened two bottles of the 1986 Mouton in the past couple of years, the most self-indulgent wine purchase Iâve ever made (not self-indulgent if en primeur), each tasted over a few hours, excellent but disappointing, I even briefly suspected counterfeit but they came from a full wooden case and were clearly Bordeaux and experienced tasters said they were real but they agreed not wow. Possibilities are storage, or needs three days to open, or the above suggestion of bottle variation that vintage, the latter makes the most sense and I had not thought of that.
I went to a K and L tasting of 2010âs maybe three years ago and a few of the other wines on the above graphic were there and the 2010 Mouton was clearly on a much higher level than every other wine in the room, a couple of which I loved (Canon, the elegant perfectly balanced (as opposed to their 2009) Haut Bailly, PLL). I checked the price, yikes, nope. But an exciting, for me perfect, complex deep balanced and fun, wow wine.
I think that during both experiences I was being focused, objective, and honest with myself under nondistracting circumstances. Doesnât mean my palate doesnât suck in general but itâs the palate I have to drink with.
Also the best 1970âs decade Bordeaux Iâve had is the 1970 Mouton (Iâve had several Moutons from that decade, they were relatively cheap fifteen years ago).
I love the 1986 and 1996 PLL which to me are very similar, but I can tell they both appeal to my partly California old school cabernet palate, unlike other vintages of PLL Iâve tried (which I also like or love, I learned to embrace the weedy). Similar opinion re 1986 and 1996 LLC, love the style those vintages.
Price was one of many factors- with the intent (depending on interpretation to some extent) to rank by inherent quality.
Do some research before making yourself look stupid by presenting an untruth to counter something you donât agree with.
The average selling price over a 40 year period was the number one criteria for ranking the chateau. You can read a condensed history of the 1855 history here⌠Learn About 1855 Bordeaux Classification of the Medoc, Official History
Price, then and now, most of the time determines quality, and the better terroir, then and now, determines the quality of the wine, most of the time.
FWIW, considering 1855 was not supposed to be permanent and the classification was completed in 2 weeks, it is an amazing creation that is still, relatively valid today.
A good article Jeff but not precisely on point with the argument in play.