2012 Château Troplong Mondot, St Emilion, Bordeaux
Critics reviews
The 2012 Troplong Mondot has a fragrant bouquet with black cherry, cough candy and touches of marmalade, not complex but vigorous and fresh. The palate is medium-bodied with a fine bone structure and good acidity. Some expressive Cabernet Franc lends a Left Bank tincture to the spicy, black pepper-tinged finish. Classy, but not sure about its longevity. Tasted twice at Bordeaux Index's Ten Year-On tasting and blind at the Southwold Ten-Year On tasting.
Drink 2022 - 2032
Neal Martin, Vinous.com (September 2022)
One of the clear wines of the vintage, the 2012 Troplong-Mondot has been remarkable on several occasions. Sweet crushed flowers, red cherries, smoke, tobacco and plums open up in a heady, sensual Saint-Emilion that hits all the right notes. The 2012 blossoms nicely with time in the glass, gaining volume, but never losing its precision. This head-turning, flashy Saint-Emilion will delight readers for the next two decades, perhaps longer. What a gorgeous wine this is. Sadly, proprietor Christine Valette passed away in the spring of 2013, but her legacy will remain alive for quite some time with wines like this.
Drink 2020 - 2032
Antonio Galloni, Vinous.com (January 2016)
90% Merlot and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon; 14.3% alcohol; 31 hectoliters per hectare; roughly 75% of the total production went into the grand vin.
Inky purple. Ripe aromas of cassis, stewed plum, dark cocoa, coffee and fresh herbs on the showy nose. On the palate, more ripe dark fruit and chocolate flavours are complicated by vanilla and coffee notes. This very powerful wine comes across as rich and velvety and finishes with a trace of alcoholic heat. It will be appreciated more by fans of high-pH, internationally-styled wines than by Bordeaux classicists.
Ian D'Agata, Vinous.com (May 2013)
Their 63-acre vineyard was cropped at 31 hectoliters per hectare, producing a final blend of 90% Merlot and 10 Cabernet Sauvignon that achieved 14.2% alcohol.
The 2012 is another truly great wine from Troplong Mondot. It’s always sentimental to taste this wine, realizing that proprietress Christine Valette (the larger-than-life heart and soul behind this estate) has passed away. She was one of the bright, shining stars of Bordeaux. Nevertheless, her legacy is certainly well-established, and the quality of this wine is beyond reproach. Inky bluish purple, its great notes of cassis, blackberry, and liquorice are followed by a full-bodied, opulently textured wine with stunning concentration, purity and overall balance. It should drink well for 20-25 years and turn out to be one of the great superstars of 2012.
Drink 2015 - 2040
Robert M. Parker, Jr., Wine Advocate (April 2015)
Olive, cassis, black cherry, leathery and cedar – this is classic claret with so much to love. It has crunch in both acid and tannin – and fruit, in fact. Beautifully open and persistent. Almost as good as their 2010, but much more ready for drinking now.
Drink 2022 - 2037
Richard Hemming MW, JancisRobinson.com (March 2023)
Well-toasted, with coffee and ganache notes coating the core of crushed plum and blackberry fruit. Keeps a hefty feel through the finish, with the ganache edge dominating. Lacks the taut feel of the vintage, pulling off the powerful style with aplomb.
James Molesworth, Wine Spectator (April 2013)
One of the deepest colours. Rich, ripe and intense on the nose. Suave and plush on the palate. Powerful but finely etched tannins. Modern but within bounds.
Drink 2019 - 2030
James Lawther MW, Decanter.com
A flat-out gorgeous wine in the vintage is the 2012 Troplong Mondot, which sports an inky ruby/purple colour to go with heavenly notes of black currants, smoked earth, plums, liquorice and graphite. Full-bodied, seamless, ultra-pure and impressively concentrated, this blockbuster effort needs 3-4 years in the cellar to let the tannins integrate, and it will knock your socks off over the following two decades.
Drink 2020 - 2040
Jeb Dunnuck, JebDunnuck.com (January 2018)
About this WINE
Château Troplong Mondot
Château Troplong Mondot is a wine estate in St Émilion on the Right Bank of Bordeaux. Ranked a Premier Grand Cru Classé B in 2006, the estate occupies an enviable terroir atop St Émilion’s famed limestone plateau.
Aymeric de Gironde, formerly of Cos d'Estournel, has led the property since 2017. Consultant Thomas Duclos took over from Michel Rolland the same year. Together, they have taken Troplong Mondot in a new direction, producing profoundly fresh wines that encapsulate an overarching stylistic shift in St Émilion. The estate’s owners, SCOR Insurance, have invested heavily in building a brand-new winery and renovating the estate’s Michelin-starred restaurant, Les Belles Perdrix.
St Émilion
St Émilion is one of Bordeaux's largest producing appellations, producing more wine than Listrac, Moulis, St Estèphe, Pauillac, St Julien and Margaux put together. St Emilion has been producing wine for longer than the Médoc but its lack of accessibility to Bordeaux's port and market-restricted exports to mainland Europe meant the region initially did not enjoy the commercial success that funded the great châteaux of the Left Bank.
St Émilion itself is the prettiest of Bordeaux's wine towns, perched on top of the steep limestone slopes upon which many of the region's finest vineyards are situated. However, more than half of the appellation's vineyards lie on the plain between the town and the Dordogne River on sandy, alluvial soils with a sprinkling of gravel.
Further diversity is added by a small, complex gravel bed to the north-east of the region on the border with Pomerol. Atypically for St Émilion, this allows Cabernet Franc and, to a lesser extent, Cabernet Sauvignon to prosper and defines the personality of the great wines such as Ch. Cheval Blanc.
In the early 1990s there was an explosion of experimentation and evolution, leading to the rise of the garagistes, producers of deeply-concentrated wines made in very small quantities and offered at high prices. The appellation is also surrounded by four satellite appellations, Montagne, Lussac, Puisseguin and St. Georges, which enjoy a family similarity but not the complexity of the best wines.
St Émilion was first officially classified in 1954, and is the most meritocratic classification system in Bordeaux, as it is regularly amended. The most recent revision of the classification was in 2012
Merlot
The most widely planted grape in Bordeaux and a grape that has been on a relentless expansion drive throughout the world in the last decade. Merlot is adaptable to most soils and is relatively simple to cultivate. It is a vigorous naturally high yielding grape that requires savage pruning - over-cropped Merlot-based wines are dilute and bland. It is also vital to pick at optimum ripeness as Merlot can quickly lose its varietal characteristics if harvested overripe.
In St.Emilion and Pomerol it withstands the moist clay rich soils far better than Cabernet grapes, and at it best produces opulently rich, plummy clarets with succulent fruitcake-like nuances. Le Pin, Pétrus and Clinet are examples of hedonistically rich Merlot wines at their very best. It also plays a key supporting role in filling out the middle palate of the Cabernet-dominated wines of the Médoc and Graves.
Merlot is now grown in virtually all wine growing countries and is particularly successful in California, Chile and Northern Italy.
Buying options
Add to wishlist
Description
The 2012 Troplong Mondot has a fragrant bouquet with black cherry, cough candy and touches of marmalade, not complex but vigorous and fresh. The palate is medium-bodied with a fine bone structure and good acidity. Some expressive Cabernet Franc lends a Left Bank tincture to the spicy, black pepper-tinged finish. Classy, but not sure about its longevity. Tasted twice at Bordeaux Index's Ten Year-On tasting and blind at the Southwold Ten-Year On tasting.
Drink 2022 - 2032
Neal Martin, Vinous.com (September 2022)
wine at a glance
Delivery and quality guarantee