Château Clerc-Milon
Château Clerc-Milon is one of several châteaux in Pauillac in the hands of the Rothschild family, which could conceivably be a mixed blessing. On the one hand, decades of secure ownership in the hands of a family committed to the region and their properties brings stability, long-term investment and the potential for improvement. On the other hand, there is the possibility that anything achieved here could be overshadowed by events at the family’s flagship estate, Château Mouton-Rothschild.
Happily for Clerc-Milon, and for those of us on the hunt for value and quality in Pauillac, the stability, investment and improvement seems to have had a greater impact than any shadows cast by the estate’s first-growth stablemate. Since I began following the wines of Clerc-Milon several decades ago there has been a clear and positive shift in quality, the wines now in second place in the Rothschild portfolio, behind those of Mouton-Rothschild. This victory has been hard-won though, and my early searches for the vines and chateau at Clerc-Milon provide some indication of just how much has changed here in recent years.
These early searches take us back a couple of decades, when I was a novice still exploring Bordeaux, and I decided I might take a look at Château Clerc-Milon. I had some reason to be interested; I had tasted the wine in all manner of vintages, often alongside that of its Rothschild stablemate Château d’Armailhac, and found that although both had consistent appeal it was often Clerc-Milon that I preferred, finding joy in its rather tense and cool character, a contrast to the more welcoming style of d’Armailhac. And so off I set up the D2, the famed route des châteaux, turning off somewhere near Mousset, north of the town of Pauillac. I had no knowledge of the exact location of the estate, but I knew it was somewhere in this vicinity. And how hard could it be to find what was surely a palatial 19th-century residence of gleaming limestone, surrounded by 40-or-so hectares of vines?
You have probably already guessed the outcome. After some fruitless searching along the back streets of Lhorte, Mousset and Anseillan, the three little villages that lie north of Le Pouyalet on the D2, I finally conceded defeat. Either I had been given dubious information as to the estate’s location, or there was some mystery here. There was, it seemed, no château, not even a little maison that could attempt to fit the bill. There were plenty of vines of course, but whether or not these belonged to Château Clerc-Milon remained an unknown. There were no vineyard markers to indicate ownership, and no helpful signs to hint that I might be on the right track. I gave up, but vowed to return another day, and take up the quest once again.
