Bordeaux Insight: Chateau Clerc Milon Joins the Overachievers Club

One of the first Bordeaux wines I ever tasted was the 1992 Chateau Clerc Milon, and it wasn’t a bad entree to the region considering the quality and consistency of this Fifth Growth estate in Pauillac.

The 1992 vintage was an extremely difficult one, with torrential rain that resulted in many diluted, early maturing wines. But the 1992 Clerc Milon was holding well when I tasted it around 2008. It showed good shape and balance, even though the color leaned toward brick and the mid-palate was fluid with the fruit becoming savory and aged. Yet it was still quite alive.

Chateau Clerc Milon sits next to Lafite, Mouton and d’Armailhac, and when I finished my vertical tasting at d’Armailhac last August, there is no way I could bypass a tasting at Clerc Milon. Today, the estate is a strong contender for top Fifth Growth overachiever. The quality and price of its wines are also moving in a parallel arc upward, offering great value for anyone seeking a classic Pauillac.

The current estate director, Caroline Artaud, who joined the team in 2020 following Jean-Emmanuel Danjoy’s move to become the guiding hand of all the Rothschild estates in Bordeaux, points out that the style of the wine is shaped by its proximity to the Gironde estuary, with an east-to-south exposure lending a bit more ripeness, density and depth.

Artaud places Clerc Milon’s mainly gravelly terroir content somewhere between Mouton and d’Armailhac. It is also known for the small percentage of carmenere it uses in its bottlings (usually 1 to 2 percent). This comes from a very old plot originally planted in 1948, with a massal selection of 12 new plants added in 2017.

The style of Clerc Milon is more compact, richer and more broad-shouldered than the more vibrant, brighter and crunchier d’Armailhac, the latter of which shows more allure when young. As with d’Armailhac, Clerc Milon has also nudged up their use of new oak, in Clerc Milon's case to 55 percent – not to load the wine with oak spices and tannins but to forge a tighter, tenser frame.

The top wine of the vertical tasting was the 2020, an exceptionally successful year to remember – both as Artaud’s first vintage and because it was the 50th Anniversary of the estate under the stewardship of Baron Philippe de Rothschild. Artaud recalled that the Covid-19 year was an early, sunny vintage with wet and warm conditions in April, May and June followed by a hot, dry summer.

The wine shows the positive traits of a warm year, with great mid-palate density, controlled opulence and structure. The 2016 and 2022 vintages, which are also great, offer a compelling contrast. The 2022 is unusually dense, compact, and finely structured for Bordeaux, while 2016 is a nimble, refined and elegant classic with plenty of charm.

READ MORE BORDEAUX 2016: THE ‘UNEXPECTED VINTAGE’ HITS 10 YEARS

A lower pH of 3.57 marks the 2016 as tense, crunchy and linear. Artaud remembers the good flavors of racy fruit and crunchiness from the pips and skins from her days at Fourcas Hosten. It was also a bumper year, with a generous yield but precise balance. The 2021 and 2023s both excel from their respective vintages, and these wines show that the recent young vintages of Clerc Milon also tend to be a bit more approachable at youth – something that most Bordelais are seeking now.

While drinking well now, the 2018, 2022 and 2023 wines all deserve another five to eight years in the bottle, and 2020 may need even more time to fully uncoil its complexity. 2015, as a more approachable merlot-based year, and the excellent, juicy 2016 are the ones I will be drinking now.

Artaud also pointed out that Clerc Milon is not only trying to become more accessible and friendly in terms of wine style, but also in terms of the guest experience at the estate. Clerc Milon currently receives just 600 to 700 guests a year – making for a spacious, warm visiting experience in the tasting room and grounds. From the look of the winery, the fact that there is no chateau at Clerc Milon already makes it less intimidating than many of its neighbors, and the quality of the wines makes it a good choice for those who like a bit more voluptuousness from Pauillac.

– Zekun Shuai, Senior Editor

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated by the JamesSuckling.com tasting team. You can sort the wines below by vintage and score. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.