Elegant and intense, with blackberries, smoke, currants, and earthy spice. Medium to full-bodied with fine tannins and great structure, it unfolds slowly on the palate with finesse and freshness. A new, more restrained style began this vintage—less oak, cooler ferments, and earlier harvest—but the power and depth remain. Drink from 2024.

Jamessuckling.com | JS 98
Published: Feb 7, 2022

The purity of fruit is pretty phenomenal here with blackcurrants, cherries and crushed-stone undertones. Floral notes of roses and violets, too. Full-bodied, yet this is a linear style with super fine tannins and great length and beauty. You really want to drink it. It grows on the palate and shows real power, with breadth and depth. Remains fresh throughout. Really something. Try after 2026.

Decanter | D 98
Published: May 27, 2024
Drink: 2027-2049

The first vintage produced without malolactic fermentation in barrel, it’s all elegant, cool fruit in a linear, super-fine tannin style, with a supple, seductive texture.
Closure: Cork
Alcohol: 15.00%
Body: Medium
Oak: Oaked
Grapes: 2% Cabernet Franc 13% Cabernet Sauvignon 85% Merlot

The Wine Advocate | RP 98
Published: Apr 7, 2022
Drink: 2027-2060

Has any Bordeaux château realized a more wholesale stylistic revolution in so short a time than Troplong Mondot? Since Aymeric de Gironde arrived at the estate in late 2017, the ultra powerful "shock and awe" style of the 2000s is out, and a new refinement is in. Of course, the deep clays that define the core vineyards around the château itself are never likely to produce light or ephemeral wines, but de Gironde has astutely understood that (to develop an analogy), when driving down hill, one can ease off on the accelerator. The 2019 Troplong Mondot is a ringing endorsement of the new direction, wafting from the glass with complex aromas of wild berries, violets, coniferous forest floor, licorice, raw cocoa and subtle spices, followed by a full-bodied, velvety and layered palate that's seamless and perfumed, its enveloping core of succulent fruit framed by rich, powdery tannins and lively acids. Harmonious and penetrating, I never thought I'd taste a wine like this from Troplong Mondot.

It's hard to think of any estate in contemporary Bordeaux that has witnessed a revolution more profound than that effected by Aymeric de Gironde at Troplong Mondot since his arrival here just after the 2017 harvest. The château itself sits at the peak of a dome of clay (known to geologists as molasses de l'Agenais) some 11-12 meters thick that has never been eroded away, and it's the vines that grow here that represent the heart of Troplong Mondot. These clays were compacted, so one of de Gironde's first initiatives was to work to undo that, ploughing by horse and employing cover crops. But Troplong's vineyards aren't limited to this dome: they encompass a range of altitudes from 40 to 110 meters above sea level, ranging onto the plateau toward the town of Saint-Émilion and almost to its edge to the south, obligating a broad window of harvesting dates, with greater attention paid to avoiding over-ripeness. Other evolutions have occurred in the winery and cellar: malolactic fermentation now completes in tank instead of in barrel; and the percentage of new oak is much reduced and, more importantly, less impactful in profile. All of which has brought new aromatic range and textural finesse and, above all, better balance to wines that, in trying to push the boundaries, in the past tended to exceed them. Having tasted Troplong Mondot back to 1959 over the years, I can attest that this site, well-farmed, is never going to produce light, ephemeral wines: power can be taken for granted. What's less self-evident is to render that power with finesse. The 2019 vintage demonstrates that de Gironde and his team are capable of doing just that.

Troplong-mondot.com

So as to understand Troplong Mondot one needs to leave behind categories and descriptions.
Troplong Mondot cannot be explained: It needs to be lived.
Appreciating an atmosphere or a setting and nourishing oneself from it, both literally and metaphorically, means finding one’s place in a world that one takes with oneself. A world like no other.

Settled upon its hilltop, the Château discretely dominates an unusual ‘terroir’, quite unlike any other.

On the one side, soft wave-like sweeping hills. On the other, the valley and the village of Saint-Emilion, stretching out under our feet.  And all around, vines, bushes, hedges, lanes and low stone walls.

TROPLONG MONDOT IS LIKE A WORLD OF ITS OWN.
All of these elements make a world of Troplong Mondot.

A UNIQUE UNIVERSE, A TRUE GIFT OF NATURE.
The preservation of this biodiversity is both an ancient and a present concern. Taking care of nature is installed in Troplong Mondot’s philosophy, essential for bringing out its best.

TROPLONG MONDOT’S SPIRIT CAN BE FOUND IN THE WINE.
In the complexity of its judiciously assembled tiny variations. In the power that tempers the elegance. In the reminder of a shared moment or a touching souvenir. Here, the sensation felt when tasting gives feeling of fulfilment. The impression that one has always belonged here, that one recognises it and has found one’s place.