Château Duhart Milon, the famous Bordeaux winery born in Pauillac, has a pretty long history as, already at the beginning of 1700, its wines were known, under the name of Château Milon, and considered the second vin of Château Lafite. The property of the two Château, in fact, was the same, namely the Marquis Nicolas-Alexandre de Ségur, defined by King Louis XV the “prince of wine”, because of his vast vineyards estates in Bordeaux. Although not comparable to the land of Lafite, those of this Château continued to produce wines of high quality to the point that, in 1855, in the famous Medoc wines Classification, by Bordeaux merchants, It was classified as Quatrième Grand Cru Classé, the only Quatrième of all Pauillac.
Despite the moderate success of these wines, over the centuries the Château often changed ownership, reaching, in the 25 years between 1937 and 1962, to be sold and bought by five different owners. From this state of affairs it is easy to guess how, in 1962, when the Rothschild family decided to buy the estate, this resulted in a serious state of semi-abandonment, with an area of vineyards, neglected, of just 17 hectares, of the 110 owned. The work of this new, famous, property was really important and was characterized, among other things, by the purchase of another 42 hectares of land and the recovery of those pre-existing, with an area of vines that returned to cover 76, while the rest were used as parks and pastures.
The current vineyard area is entirely located in the northern quadrant of Pauillac, on the hill of Milon, west of that of Lafite, and is characterized by naturally cooler soils, consisting of a mix of gravel, sand and limestone residues. Here are planted vines of Cabernet Sauvignon, for 67%, and Merlot, for 33%, divided into 40 different parcels, most of which are merged into a single large block.
After the harvest (usually later than average, due to the cooler climate), the grapes are vinified in 40 thermo-conditioned stainless steel tanks, of various sizes, parcels per parcel, and always in them they perform malolactic fermentation. The aging in barriques, new at 50%, produced by the private workshop of Domaine, lasts from 14 to 18 months, with frequent racking, and ends with clarification by means of egg whites that precludes bottling and marketing.
The 2010 vintage is characterized by a full and concentrated ruby color, and aromas that begin with boiled plum, crème de cassis, wild blackberry and green branch of cinchona, followed by dry pot pourri, black olive, undergrowth and dark tobacco, with elegant echoes of goudron, vinyl, graphite and boisée. The taste, while impressing for its articulation and density, remains still rather elegant, with an excellent freshness and a really smooth tannin (softened by 10 years of aging in the bottle) to mark the rhythm of the sip while, by retro-olfactory way, return the almost over-ripe dark fruit and the most evolute spices (vinyl, graphite and goudron mostly), which persist even after the good length closure.
Rating: 93/100
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