Château Troplong Mondot

Château Troplong Mondot is owned by the Valette family, who have brought it into the modern era. Alexandre Valette, a wine merchant in Paris, purchased the estate that had been developed by Raymond Troplong. He already owned Château La France in Fronsac, and shortly thereafter he acquired Château Pavie in Quinsac. In 1980, Alexandre’s great-granddaughter, Christine, took over the estate. Ten years later, her husband, Xavier Parienté, joined her. Together, they continued to improve the vineyard and cellars and to enhance the château. In 2006, all those years of effort and hard work paid off: Troplong-Mondot was designated a Premier Grand Cru Classé.

The vineyards of Château Troplong Mondot extend over a thick layer of limestone beneath a layer of rich clay, and the groundwater present in the subsoil combine to provide Troplong Mondot’s old vines (with an average age of 35 years; the oldest are over 90 years old) with the limited fertility necessary for grand cru wines. This clay-limestone soil, typical of the Saint-Emilion hillside vineyards, is intermixed with sedimentary fragments of flint and limestone. It is perhaps to this unique composition that we owe the wine’s splendid color and beautiful concentration.

The vineyard management at Château Troplong Mondot follows traditional methods within a framework of sustainable agriculture (no herbicides, no chemical fertilizers, no insecticides). Plowing; Bordeaux-style pruning using the “M. Cordeau” two-cane method; green bud removal in the spring. In July, leaf removal followed by thinning to allow for optimal ripening of the grapes. Hand-harvested, with picking dates determined by three criteria: ripeness checks, tasting of the berries, and the estate’s various terroirs.