Trotanoy 2009

A vintage that Edouard Moueix summed up succinctly by comparing it to a friend that is always ready to please, to the point that you can't help but try to find fault. What that means in the glass is that you get plenty of aromatic complexity, and an attack that is generous, ample and ready to go. There is a caramel edge that suggests the fruit was fully ripe and is starting to soften. Autumnal red berry fruit, truffle and wet earth are on display, but it retains plenty of structure, and you can feel the tannins elongating across the palate, adding freshness and shape and helping to give width and density. It’s ten years old and starting to fully deliver. Drink 2019-2038.

Very dark. Juicy, savoury, complete on the nose. Very ripe with some liquorice and treacle toffee. Extremely opulent and reverberant. Lots of black notes on the palate. Exotic and with savoury dry finish. Really interesting wine. Dense and almost tarry but without the drying tannins on the finish sometimes associated with that character. Well done! Very long and satisfying. But dramatic. No prisoners' style of wine. Date tasted 30th March 2010. Drink 2018-2032.

This sports a dark, chewy side for now, with overt charcoal and roasted apple wood notes, along with plenty of smoldering tobacco flavors. The core is still a bit chunky as well, with roasted fig, blackberry paste and steeped black currant fruit. But the underlying structure is refined, despite its density, and the finish is very long and purely rendered. Best from 2018 through 2035. From France.-J.M.

The nose is enriched by ripe black plums, all sweet and lush. On the start of the palate there is the same richness of fruit but it is nicely balanced by fresher black cherry and bramble all adding to the complexity. It is seamless, lovely and long, layers of flavour adding excitement. Drink 2020-2045.

The J-P Moueix tasting was of a very high standard this year, but this was the exceptional wine for me. It's very deeply coloured, showing rich, sumptuous aromas of coffee bean, plum and blackberry. The palate is beautifully structured, even at this young age, with lovely balance between tannins, oak, acidity and fruit. An exceptional Pomerol . 20+ years

Deep colour. Intense. Firm but refined tannins. Caressing attack, exceptional fruit then great persistence on the finish. Trademark minerally freshness provides balance. Drink 2020-2045.

The 2009 Trotanoy is flat out magnificent and clearly one of the top handful of wines made in Bordeaux in this vintage. Of all the Pomerols that I tasted on this trip, only Pétrus is superior to Trotanoy, as this wine is simply a great classic in the making. The utterly profound and regal nose offers up a glorious mélange of plums, black cherries, raw cocoa, herb tones, woodsmoke, a stunningly complex base of soil, coffee bean, a hint of the blood orange to come and a very discreet framing of vanillin oak. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and flawlessly balanced, with a huge core of pure fruit, stunning focus and balance, plenty of ripe tannins and an endless, utterly seamless finish. The 2009 Trotanoy is a very powerful vintage for this wine, but is so breathtakingly poised and light on its feet as to almost belie its amazing depth and intensity. One of the greatest young vintages of Trotanoy I have ever tasted, this is a masterpiece of traditional Pomerol in the making. Amazingly, this is the ripest wine in the entire Moueix stable this year, as it weighs in at a full 14.3 percent alcohol, and yet is utterly cool in the mouth. A profoundly great wine. (Drink between 2022-2075)

I don't know what the 1961 Trotanoy tasted like in its youth, but the 2009 unquestionably surpasses the 1982 (which was the finest effort since the 1961) and eclipses anything made since. By far the greatest Trotanoy of my professional career, the 2009 boasts a dense plum/purple color as well as a meaty, earthy nose buttressed by enormous quantities of black fruits, cherries, and spice. Abundant glycerin, viscosity, purity, and elegance are all part of this massive, exuberant, powerful Trotanoy. One of the most prodigious wines of the vintage, it should come into its own in 8-10 years, and last 30-40 years thereafter. (Tasted once.) Drink 2018-2058.Robert Parker added an asterisk to this wine score to signify that it is a wine he considers has the finest potential of all the offerings he has ever tasted from this estate in nearly 32 years of barrel tasting samples in Bordeaux.

Tasted at the Trotanoy vertical in Hong Kong, the 2009 Trotanoy has long been one of the standout Pomerols in what was a fecund year for the appellation. This bottle reaffirmed previous reviews, although the aromatics were perhaps a little more immediate with blackberry, roasted chestnut and truffles, just a touch of glycerin, all delivered with fabulous precision. The oak is more assimilated on the palate that still feels succulent. But, look a little further and there is real backbone cloaked by all that fruit, plus there is awe-inspiring persistence on the finish that just lacquers the mouth. Stupendous! Tasted November 2016.Drink Date 2022 - 2060

Tasted at JP Moueix. This has a super-concentrated nose with vibrant black fruits, black cherries, a touch of graphite and smoke, billowing with aeration. Very well defined and controlled. Hints of Xmas cake developing with time. The palate is full-bodied with thick, almost chewy tannins, but exquisite balance and harmony, this represents a Trotanoy that wants to make a big impression...and it does. Rounded, intense black, earthy/clayey fruit towards the finish that has immense persistency. Gargantuan! Tasted April 2010.

From Robert Parker's Hong Kong Tasting, 8th Nov 2011:Aromas of green and black olives with hints of dried dark fruits. Then cocoa undertones. Full bodied with lots of super fine and silky tannins and a long caressing finish. It is very subdued now. Very pretty. Try after 2020.

A nose of dark chocolate and crushed raspberry evolves to blackberry and ripe raspberry. Full-bodied, with chewy and powerful tannins that leave a rich and mouthpuckering finish. This is a big and powerful Trot. Wow. Haven't tasted a Trot like this in decades.