2018 Château Trotanoy

Inky depths to the colour. This has been hard to ignore since the first tasting En Primeur, and although now three years old, it is barely out of the starting blocks. In fact, scratch that, it isn't yet out of the starting blocks, and needs at least another decade in bottle to really hit its stride. The tannins, however, are already covered in satin and dark chocolate, muscled and bristling, enclosing the most gorgeously-pure cassis and blackberry fruits. Graphite, cigar box, slate come in strongly on the finish, and even though it is not ready, I have to say that I kept going back to it for just one more sip, just to check...

The 2018 Trotanoy is one that I described as one of the vintage’s best wines when I tasted it from barrel. Now in bottle, it delivers a heavenly bouquet of mixed red and black fruit, iron filing, truffle and mint aromas. The palate is medium-bodied with wonderful structure and poise. This is an extremely complex Pomerol, lightly peppered with gentle but insistent grip toward the finish. You can feel it lingering in the mouth for 60 seconds afterward. Returning to the same bottle the following day, it had, remarkably, blossomed into an even greater Pomerol, gaining cohesion and revealing its symmetry and structure, with even more complexity and nuance on the finish. A titan.