2010 Chateau Trotanoy Pomerol 750 ml

Greatness is Never “Too Much Bother”

The 2010 vintage on the Right Bank has made its way into the history books, with Wine Spectator speaking for most of us in hailing the “superb” vintage in Pomerol with 98 points. Bottles from this extremely coveted vintage have mostly disappeared into cellars of well-heeled Bordeaux collectors around the world, with the Chinese especially stocking up on this historic vintage.

So we count it as a distinct pleasure — an increasingly rare one — when we get to taste, much less write about, one of the exceptional 2010 Bordeaux from the Right Bank. Case in point: This 98-pointer from Château Trotanoy.

In the mid-1700s, the aristocratic Giraud family in Pomerol founded a wine estate that today we know as the distinguished Château Trotanoy. But the name chosen by the Girauds back then — “Trop Ennuie,” or “Too Much Bother” — speak to the challenges they faced farming the vineyard’s iron-infused, heavy clay soil. Still, the property was not so much bother that it wasn’t coveted and acquired by the respected Moueix family — stewards of Château Petrus — in the mid-20th century. The great Right Bank parcel of the Pomerol plateau has thrived ever since, perhaps never more so than in the epic 2010 vintage.

Robert Parker called the 2010 Château Trotanoy “flawless” and backed it up with a near-perfect 98 points. Wine Spectator matched Parker, bestowing ANOTHER 98 for the monumental Merlot-Cabernet Franc blend — the “brick-house Pomerol of the vintage.” Having tasted it ourselves, it’s possible that even these superlatives fail to capture this wine’s appeal.

The 2010 Trotanoy is a supremely well-balanced wine, saturated purple-black in the glass, with an explosive nose of red and black forest fruit, intertwined with earthier notes of tobacco, tar, and a hint of forest floor. Unsurprisingly, the wine is powerful on the attack and boasts an impressive concentration of blackberry, black currant, and dark plum fruit. This is textbook masculine Pomerol, full-bodied and showing dense chewiness through the finish, though with air the tannins reveal themselves to be elegant and rich, even silky. But make no mistake, the 2010 Trotanoy’s concentration and structure, combined with its lightning streak of integrated acidity, will ensure cellar-worthiness for two decades or longer. As Robert Parker said, “Bravo!”

Blessed with matching 98s from Parker and Spectator, the 2010 Trotanoy will no doubt go down in Bordeaux history as one of the Moueix family’s finest efforts from the Pomerol appellation, Petrus included. If there is a “bother” about this wine today, it can only be found in its scarcity. Among the most sought-after wines of Pomerol, it tops out at 2000 cases each year; in a vintage like 2010, it might as well be 200. WineAccess was able to secure just 100 — BOTTLES.  

Elsewhere, if you can find one, a bottle of the 2010 Trotanoy will cost you upwards of $500. Today on WineAccess: $359/bottle. We hope you enjoyed reading this as much as we enjoyed writing it. We KNOW those of you who hit “Buy” long ago will enjoy tasting it as much as we did.