Pauillac · vintage 2018
Why this vintage
- 100/100 from James Sucklingand 6 other scores above 90/100.
- The 2018 vintage in PauillacAfter a spring marked by mildew, the heat concentrated a small crop: rich, ripe wines with great depth of material.
Critic scores
- James Suckling100
- Wine Advocate99
- Vinous99
- Wine Enthusiast99
- Wine Spectator98
- Jeb Dunnuck97
- Decanter94
The 2018 vintage in Pauillac
Vintage benchmark: 95/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)
Vintage character: After a spring marked by mildew, the heat concentrated a small crop: rich, ripe wines with great depth of material.
Overall reading of the year’s season across Pauillac. An estate can depart from it sharply, in frost or hail years, where two neighbours did not make the same vintage. What this particular wine actually gave is on its technical sheet and in the scores above.
Tasting
The wines have lots of color and offer excellent tannin structures. They are remarkably dense and velvety with a rare aromatic concentration.
Blend of the 2018 vintage
- 86 % Cabernet-sauvignon
- 12 % Merlot
- 2 % Cabernet franc
Shares for this vintage, as recorded on the 2018 technical sheet. The vineyard itself is planted with cabernet sauvignon, merlot, cabernet franc, petit verdot, sémillon, sauvignon blanc — a vintage blend departs from the area under vine as the year dictates.
Figures from the 2018 sheet
- 44 yrsVine age
- 300,000 bottlesProduction
Label
Winemaking
Vinification is carried out in an oak vat, one of the last in the Médoc, for 15 to 26 days. Mouton Rothschild practices unusual vinification by leaving the wine in vats after the end of fermentation. This gives additional body, requiring longer maturation in the bottle to reach full maturity. ageing takes place in oak barrels for 19 to 22 months.
Ageing
After vinification, ageing takes place in new oak barrels and its various stages take place in the great Médoc tradition: notably topping, and fining with egg white, which aims to clarify and stabilize the wine by encouraging the precipitation of the particles found in suspension. During ageing, which lasts around twenty months, the barrels are transferred from the Grand Chai to the second year cellar, where the wine ends its stay at the Château in a cool place.
Terroir
Château Mouton Rothschild has 84 hectares of vines in Pauillac, planted with the varieties typical of the region: Cabernet Sauvignon (80%), Merlot (16%), Cabernet Franc (3%) and Petit Verdot (1%). This premier cru enjoys exceptional natural conditions, both in the quality of its soils and in their exposure and sunshine. The Château brings together all the conditions for an exceptional terroir: a rise of nearly 8 m of dense, poor Garonne gravels resting on a marl-limestone base shot through with traces of iron oxide.
An offer on Château Mouton Rothschild 2018
Availability, allocations and terms: the Compagnie Médocaine will reply promptly. The estate and vintage are already filled in in the message.
Texts and documents 2018
The texts below copy in one click for your product sheets, catalogues and social channels. The printable sheet condenses the whole page onto a single A4 page.
Visuals
For this vintage, the media library contains: packshots. High-definition packshots, labels, back labels and lifestyle photos are reserved for clients and partners, on the Compagnie Médocaine’s VinCod media library.
Sheet checked on September 21, 2026. Technical data: the estate’s VinCod sheets. Critic scores: sources cited above, with their date. Vintage benchmarks and character: Compagnie Médocaine’s own editorial read. Soils and relief, where shown: the Compagnie Médocaine’s parcel survey and the Mapbox/IGN terrain model.