Château Trotanoy Pomerol 2019

Reminding me a little of the 1998, the 2019 Château Trotanoy is all Merlot sourced from a 7-hectare vineyard planted on dark clay and gravelly soils. A prodigious wine in every way, it offers a serious, dense, powerful, full-bodied style as well as notes of ripe black cherries, damp earth, tobacco, cedar pencil, and graphite. As with the other top wines in the vintage, it has an incredible sense of purity and precision, building, firm tannins, awesome mid-palate depth, and a huge finish. It's not for those seeking instant gratification and is much more structured and backward than I would have thought from barrel. It needs a solid decade of bottle age and will have 40+ years of longevity. It's another brilliant, brilliant wine from this team that I wish every reader could taste.

The 2019 Trotanoy was picked on a single day - 21 September and is matured in 50% new oak. Now this has a more backward bouquet than say Hosanna or La Fleur-Pétrus, biding its time before revealing extraordinarily pure black fruit laced with ethereal crushed stone and discrete blood orange scents. It displays astonishing delineation. The palate is utterly harmonious, quite dense yet refined and graceful. Hints of dark chocolate and truffe emerge towards the finish as it fans out gloriously. Quite simply, one of the best Pomerols...again.

Dense and ripe but with a sleekness and sense of reserve, as the core of cassis, blackberry paste and fig pâte de fruit notes is flanked by warm earth, roasted alder and tobacco notes. The finish is underscored by a bolt of cast iron, with everything knitting steadily through to the end. Offers a serious tarry grip, too. Best from 2026 through 2042. 1,250 cases made, 162 cases imported.

Fine structure and dark Merlot flavors give this wine its richness. Despite the alcohol, it has style, the fruit not overwhelmed by the weight. It will take time, so drink from 2027.

The most powerful wine in the Mouiex portfolio this year is the 2019 Trotanoy, a rich, muscular effort that is also unusually open out of the gates for a young wine from this estate. Offering up aromas of cherries, dark berries, cedarwood, rich spices, sweet soil tones and creamy new oak, it's full-bodied, deep and textural, with a lavish attack, notable concentration and plenty of ripe tannin that asserts itself on the youthfully chewy finish.