Every year since 1945, Château Mouton Rothschild has handed the label of its grand vin to an artist with complete freedom to create an original work. The list reads like an art history syllabus, from Picasso and Chagall to Warhol, with the occasional raised eyebrow along the way.
The 2017 label, released today, belongs firmly in the raised-eyebrow category, which I mean entirely as a compliment.
The artist is Annette Messager, the French artist born in 1943, and her work for Mouton is called Hallelujah. The word is repeated many times in waves across the artwork, above a pair of bare breasts and a hand holding a glass of wine that recalls Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam. As the château puts it, she combines milk and wine, two substances the Bible often links, and celebrates the virtues of both.
Messager takes objects, shapes and words from everyday life and turns them into a sometimes joyful, sometimes alarming kind of poetry, shaped by her feminist convictions. She won the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 2005, and her work has long asked how women are seen, both by individuals and by society at large. I can’t think of a better year for that question to appear on one of the most famous wine labels in the world.
For many women, 2017 will be remembered as the year of #MeToo, when the allegations against Harvey Weinstein spilled across social media and countless women came forward with their own stories.
Looking back over Mouton’s labels since 1945, each one captures an artist’s vision and often something of its moment, and Messager’s label seems to me a fitting way to remember that year.
There’s a precedent worth remembering, too. The 1993 label by Balthus, featuring a nude young girl, caused a stir, particularly in America, and blank labels were later supplied to the US market. When Messager’s label was unveiled, Wine Spectator wondered whether it might be the first in decades to raise eyebrows with the American labelling authorities. I’ll leave you to decide what it says about our times that a celebration of milk and wine could still be considered daring.
As for the wine itself, the 2017 has one of the highest proportions of Cabernet Sauvignon Mouton has ever used, and it comes from a very good vintage for Bordeaux’s top châteaux. And in keeping with tradition, Messager wasn’t paid for her work but received cases of Mouton, including, of course, her own vintage, which strikes me as a rather civilised arrangement.
19th Nov 2019
Château Mouton Rothschild 2017
Grape: 90% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Merlot, 1% Petit Verdot
Region: Pauillac, Bordeaux
Year: 2017
Alcohol: 12.5%
Release price: £360 per bottle in bond, en primeur from Fine Wine Merchants
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