Château Clerc Milon Rothschild, 5ème Cru Classé, Pauillac, 2025
Clerc Milon hails from one single plot to the east of Mouton, also neighbouring Chateau Lafite. Produced from 62% Cabernet Sauvignon, 28% Merlot, 8% Cabernet Franc, 1% Carmenère and 1% Petit Verdot. It opens with a charming floral and blue-fruited profile with touches of liquorice and vanilla cream. The palate is awash with bright strawberries and hedgerow fruit with an engaging bittersweet character, wonderful freshness and laser-like focus. This tastes really elevated with silky, mouth-coating tannins and a superb texture. Elegant, moreish and intricate.
critic reviews
The 2025 Clerc Milon was picked from September 3 to 19 and matured in 55% new oak. The oak shows a little more than the d'Armailhac at the moment, though that will be subsumed with time. I suspect it will need longer bottle age to fully integrate. The palate is very rounded and supple on the entry, a mixture of red and black fruit, a little white pepper and tobacco, gaining more weight towards the finish with a sustained aftertaste. I feel this might have the edge over the d'Armailhac this vintage—let's see.
Captures the muscular leanness of the vintage, coupled with great intensity and depth, waves of cloves, red liquorice, dark autumnal fruits, huge sapidity, coffee bean and cappuccino, clear richness with creamy weight through the mid palate. 3.78 pH. Harvest September 3 to 19. 55% new oak for ageing. Estate signature. 3.78ph.