2020 Château Trotanoy

The 2020 Trotanoy is an outstanding Pomerol with fantastic delineation and precision on the nose, unfolding with each swirl of the glass. Very focused and detailed, it features intense notes of black cherry, truffle, crushed stone and loam. The palate is quintessential Pomerol, structured like a typical Trotanoy with plenty of horsepower on the finish. There's a long, long road ahead for this wine. Tasted blind at the annual Southwold tasting.

Muscular, powerful, precise and oh-so-clearly long ageing, this is Trotanoy at the height of its powers, and you could be nowhere else but Pomerol with this glass. Succulent black cherry and cassis fruits, riven through with cocoa bean, cigar box, cloves, toasted pepper, gunsmoke and liquorice. It digs in and grips on from beginning to end, so sure of itself and its place. The tannins remain closed right now, as you would expect at just three years old, but it is already hinting at the crushed rose petals and violet flowers that will unveil further over the next decade. This was a potential 100 point wine during my En Primeur tastings, and my in bottle re-taste has arrived a little later than usual, but I am thrilled to say that it fully lives up to expectations. Harvest September 15 to 18, 42hl/ha yield.

The 2020 Trotanoy is the most powerful wine in the Mouiex portfolio this year, delivering a rich bouquet of cherries, dark berries, fruitcakes, licorice, anise and brown sugar. Full-bodied, rich and muscular, with a ripe, heady core of sun-kissed fruit and considerable structuring extract, it concludes with a broad, expansive finish that largely conceals the wine's 15% alcohol. Given its structure and substance, it will certainly require some patience.