File: Bordeaux Futures 2007: The Winemakers
It was early on the Friday morning before the UGC tastings. We pulled into Mouton Rothschild, the mist still hovered over the vineyards, and the hordes had not yet arrived. Philippe Dhalluin, Director-General of all of ....
the Rothschild estates, met us at the door. We knew we'd be tasting the 2007 Mouton with him. Our smiles widened when we saw he'd added Clerc Milon, d'Armailhac, Petit Mouton and Ailes d'Argent to the tasting.
While most people would begin their discovery of the 2007 vintage next week, Frederic, Philippe and I were already on our 10th day of shooting and tasting. I had heard a lot of reports from many appellations, and the picture of 2007 that was forming was not a simple one. I was grateful that Dhalluin had included the wines from the other estates he oversees. Every wine added another detail.
This was our first day in Pauillac, known for its powerful, masculine red wines. Interestingly, there was a white wine on the table: Aile d'Argent, Mouton's white wine. We'd already tasted Margaux's small production white wine, and Paul Pontaillier had been justifiably smug. Ditto for Jean-Philippe Delmas at Haut Brion.
I was curious to hear what Phililppe Dhalluin would say about his different wines, his different terroirs, and his battle with the weather in 2007. That he'd won the battle was a foregone conclusion. This was Mouton. Losing wasn't allowed.
But there are wins that come, seemingly from the Gods, easy, relatively painless, those years where the weather is so perfect and the diseases and pests so rare, that you'd have to be spectacularly incompetent to make a bad wine. Prices skyrocket, and speculators drive the frenzy. And then there are those wins that might not produce the-wine-of-the-century, but they are pretty damn good just the same, against the odds of bad weather, and waves of nearly every disease and pest known to vine.
After talking to Philippe Dhalluin, I realized it was more than a matter of managing difficult conditions...
Note:
Philippe Dhalluin is the Director-General of all of the Rothschild estates in France and abroad, including Mouton Rothschild, Clerc Milon, d'Armailhac, La Fleur Milon, Colombier-Monpelou, Petit Mouton de Mouton Rothschild, Aile d'Argent, Domaine de Baron'Arques, Opus One and Almaviva. He is also the Chateaux Technical Director. To learn more about the estates, check out their website www.bpdr.com
Credit:
Director of Photography - Philippe SIMON
Postproduction - Frederic LOT
Correspondent & Writer - Suzanne MUSTACICH
Text - S.M.
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