Aile d'Argent 2009

Lot presentation

Aile d'Argent 2009

The wine

Four hectares of vines located on Mouton Rothschild land, were planted with a classic blend of white grape varieties (Sémillon, Sauvignon blanc and Muscadelle) in the 1980s. The wine produced here was named Aile d'Argent in reference to a children's tale written by the Baron Philippe de Rothschild for his daughter Philippine, published by Gallimard in 1947: ""Aile d'Argent la magique"" [the Magic Silver Wing]. The vines here have an average age of 13 years and are planted on three distinct plots of sandy-gravelly soil. As at Mouton Rothschild, hand harvesting is carried out in several successive sorting processes. The wine is fermented in stainless steel vats followed by oak barrels (50% new wood). After 12 months of ageing, Aile d'Argent is blended and bottled. White Médoc wines have never been officially classified, and as a result, Aile d'Argent is simply classified as a white Bordeaux.

Baron Nathaniel de Rothschild acquired the château in 1853, but the legend of Mouton did not really begin until 1922 with Baron Philippe de Rothschild. At the age of 21, full of ambition and original ideas, he decided to devote his life to forging the wine's identity and its international reputation, which, from the very beginning also had an effect on the image of Bordeaux's wines as a whole. In 1924, faced with the numerous irregular practices of Bordeaux's wine merchants, he inaugurated the bottled at the château guarantee. In 1945, to celebrate the Liberation, a V for victory crowned the label for that vintage, an initiative which marked the beginning of a series of original works created each year for the label by a famous artist. In 1973, even though no change had ever been made to the 1855 classification, Baron Philippe obtained - not without some difficulty - a revision that officially made Mouton one of Bordeaux's elite Premier Grands Crus Classés. On his death in 1998, his daughter Philippine took over the reins, assisted by an unparalleled technical team, and successfully continued her father's projects until her death in 2014. Today, her three children, Camille Sereys de Rothschild, Philippe Sereys de Rothschild and Julien de Beaumarchais de Rothschild run the estate together.