Perfumed and vivid nose. Supple and alive, plump yet streamlined, too - the initial bounce of round, ripe fruit straightens and focuses like a laser with cool blue fruits and menthol touches supported by the grippy, salty tannins that keep the mouth full of texture. A serious wine yet nuanced, pure and fresh. Perhaps not the weight you’d usually expect, but this has total charm and really delivers an enjoyable, cellarable wine.

Plum, chocolate, hazelnut and iodine aromas follow through to a medium body with firm and silky tannins and a savory finish. Hints of toasted oak and chocolate to the fruit on the palate. Balanced and classy. Seriously pretty. Trot personality. Give this three or four years to open and show more. Drink after 2025.

Chocolate-covered plums, black cherries, flowers, espresso, spice, and licorice create the intense perfume. The palate offers an elegant, firm, classy profile, which is the perfect backdrop for all the ripe, dark, red pit fruits, cocoa, and salty chocolate. There is intensity. vibrancy, and a regal, structure with a long, complex finish here that really works. As I wrote in my barrel tastings, in some ways, this reminds me of the best attributes from previous classic vintages that are now aged into maturity. Drink from 2027-2060.

Fresh aromas of blackberries are an enticing entry into a wine with ripe tannins. Clay with iron in the soil gives an important structure and layers of black currant fruits along with tannins. This is a big wine worth aging. Drink from 2028. — Roger Voss

The 2021 Trotanoy has one of the best aromatic profiles that I encountered amongst the Pomerols in this season: lovely, vivacious black cherries, wild strawberry, truffle and pencil box aromas that are beautifully defined and focused. This is real class. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannins, fresh and focused with impressive weight and tension for such a challenging vintage. It takes a really terrible vintage to make a poor Trotanoy, and this is certainly a triumph in the face of adversity. -- Neal Martin

I have been looking forward to retasting this in bottle, because it slightly underwhelmed during En Primeur. Things have definitely filled out through the mid palate, with plenty of grilled blueberry and cassis fruit, black truffles, black tea, olive pit, cocoa bean and crushed rocks. Impressive, subdued but with plenty of life and tannic architecture. An unusual solo-Merlot blend due to vintage conditions. Harvest September 27 to October 4.

Always a powerful, structured wine, the 2021 Château Trotanoy comes from 7.2 hectares of vines on the southern portion of the appellation and gravelly, clay, and iron-laced soils. All Merlot, it offers a deep ruby/plum hue to go with a medium-bodied, concentrated, inward style as well as classic Trotanoy notes of ripe dark fruits, woodsmoke, iron, and leather. Concentrated, with ripe, polished, yet building tannins, it has a seamless, pure mouthfeel, and a great finish. In comparison to the more round, up-front, and pleasure-bent Fleur-Petrus, this is much more straight, deep, and focused. Give bottles a solid 4-6 years and enjoy over the following two decades.

(94+ points) While the 2021 Trotanoy is the most muscular, structured wine in the Mouiex portfolio this year, by Trotanoy's standards, the wine is remarkably supple and charming, and it will only require a modicum of cellaring, even if it will reward more. Offering up aromas of dark cherries, plums and berries mingled with sweet soil tones, licorice and espresso roast, it's medium to full-bodied, with a broad attack, a creamy core of fruit and sweet, powdery tannins that only gently assert themselves on the finish. - William Kelley

The 2021 Trotanoy is 100% Merlot and it has a deep garnet-purple color. It sings of black cherries, mulberries, and fresh plums, soon opening out to reveal hints of lilacs, cinnamon stick, and clove oil. The medium-bodied palate delivers taut, muscular fruit with an approachable backbone of velvety tannins and bags of freshness, finishing on a lingering ferrous note. Very skillfully managed, this is a wonderfully accessible, delicious Trotanoy!

This is silky at first, offering alluring blood orange and raspberry notes laced with rooibos tea, with a subtle mineral hint peeking through. Showing latent length, this puts on considerable weight as it airs in the glass, with dark earth and roasted tobacco notes expanding along with the fruit. Impressive for the vintage. Best from 2026 through 2040. — J.M.