Troplong Mondot 2021 (750ML)

96 VM / 96 DE / 95 JS / 95 WA / 95 JA / 95 WI

The 2021 Troplong Mondot is fabulous. It offers up a rush of dark red-toned fruit, crushed rocks, leather, menthol, cedar and blood orange. As always, Troplong Mondot is marked by a strong presence of Cabernet Sauvignon that seems to add brooding intensity, muscle and power. I tasted it three times. A bottle given a brief decant of about 20 minutes showed best. The 2021 spent 13 months in oak (two months less than normal), in a mix of 60% new, 21% 20-hectoliter cask and 19% once-used. The 2021 is a Troplong Mondot of extreme purity and class. - Antonio Galloni, Vinous Media

Bright purple rim to the wine. So many aromas on the nose, really captivating and full - dark chocolate, pink flowers giving a soft perfume, cinnamon, raspberries, black cherries and liquorice too - all intensifying over twenty minutes in the glass. Super bright and charged on the palate, this is off like a firecracker from the initial impact, giving tangy strawberry, red cherry and raspberry fruit flavours. It's got power no doubt, but a delicate, light style, not so concentrated and intense more lifted and aerial with tension. So much energy here, the flavours come in waves on the palate, red fruits, cooling blue fruits, exotic spices, flowers and fresh minty, stone notes with a real mineral salinity on the finish. It's perhaps not so weighty or full in the mouth like previous more opulent vintages, but there is clarity and definition of elements on show. I love the mineral finish, so Troplong. Extremely refined. First vintage in the new cellar facilities which helped with precision. - Georgina Hindle, Decanter

Elegant and refined nose with a classy touch of spices and mineral to the red currants and berries. Very sleek and linear on the palate with super polished, immaculate tannins and a very long finish. Not a powerful vintage for sure, but this is all about finesse and subtlety. Already drinkable, but can hold for a decade. - James Suckling

The 2021 Troplong Mondot unwinds in the glass with aromas of dark berries, cherries and plums mingled with violets, exotic spices and smoke. Medium to full-bodied, deep and complete, the wine is layered and complex, with all the depth and authority that one expects from this clay-driven terroir, its concentrated core of fruit underpinned by sweet tannins and lively animating acids, concluding with a long, resonant finish. A blend of 85% Merlot, 13% Cabernet Sauvignon and 2% Cabernet Franc with a remarkably low pH of 3.35, it's the first vintage produced in the estate's state-of-the-art new winery. - William Kelley, Wine Advocate

The natural density that they have at Troplong was extremely helpful in a vintage like 2021. This is a little more reserved than a typical year, but very much delivers signature power. Expect gunsmoke, fern and raspberry leaf alongside cherry pit and saffron salinity, black cherry fruits, rosebud, anis, fennel spice, all with the powerful and concentrated signature of limestone. I was here on the last day of harvest, and I remember how healthy the grapes were. This is the first vintage where the cellar has been completely finished, moving from 20 to 42 tanks. No chaptilisation (but the natural 13.5%abv is extremely rare at this late ripening property, and a real indication of how long it took for sugars to climb in this vintage). -Jane Anson, Inside Bordeaux

The 2021 Troplong Mondot has a deep garnet-purple color. It slowly emerges from the glass with notes of black cherries, juicy blackberries, and fresh black plums, giving way to nuances of licorice and tar, plus wafts of violets and cracked black pepper. The medium-bodied palate has a rock-solid structure of firm, grainy tannins and lively acidity supporting the tight-knit, muscular fruit, finishing long and minerally. Should age beautifully! - Lisa Perrotti-Brown, Wine Independent