Cellar Favorite: 1986 Mouton-Rothschild

BY NEAL MARTIN | DECEMBER 29, 2025

I have been waiting to write this Cellar Favorite for many years. Rewind a decade or so. Following a visit to this Pauillac First Growth, former winemaker Philippe Dhalluin invited me for a quick lunch before my afternoon flight home. He poured a wine blind. It was sensational. Blew me away. I suggested that it must surely be an exemplary example of the 1982 Mouton-Rothschild.

Dhalluin smiled. I was wrong. Not for the first time.

It was the 1986 Mouton-Rothschild. Following that lunch, the ‘86 never reappeared at any tasting or dinner, evading my “capture.” When a magnum was generously proffered at a dinner last spring, it was corked. That same person, wishing to right a wrong (not his but that of the defective cork), kindly brought a bottle to a recent gathering at Cornus in London.

The 1986 Mouton-Rothschild replicated that initial sensational display, perhaps surpassed it. Put me on record as stating that this is one of the greatest wines of that decade. Many bemoan the glacial pace at which the 1986s have matured in bottle, but the best examples are finally shedding their robust tannic frames and blossoming into brilliant examples of Left Bank claret. Good things come to those who wait, no?

As it nears 40 years in age, this Pauillac is acquiescing to time, those huge tannins polymerising as primary fruit evolves into secondary. The nose is a cornucopia of scents—blackberry, cedar, mint and freshly picked violet—all delivered with equal precocity and control. This is the first time that this Mouton-Rothschild has conveyed a more melted texture on the palate. There remains immense grip, but all those angles and edges have been smoothed into velvet. It has amazing depth, unfurling layers of predominantly black fruit, blueberry and graphite before it dovetails into a sumptuous yet still aristocratic finish. The 1986 feels like a well-behaved 1982 Mouton, less hedonistic, a little more statesmanlike. In general, the 1986s are a bit forgotten, sometimes dismissed simply because they were predestined to evolve so slowly. But the best examples are delivering for those with patience. The 1986 Mouton-Rothschild is the best of them all. 100/Drink 2025-2060.

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