Château Troplong Mondot

The château

Troplong Mondot sits on a hill running from 60 to 110 meters, and the vineyard has changed very little since it was laid out in 1700. Its name joins a place and a man. A list of the Saint-Émilion growths drawn up in 1841, which Charles Cocks reprinted in 1850, has Mondot in the first class of the Haut-Saint-Émilion under Gérus Troplong at 20 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels), and William Franck, whose Traité sur les vins du Médoc first appeared in 1824, printed Mondot under Troplong among the wines of the first marque in 1853, at 10 to 12. By 1868 Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, could explain the name. The cru had passed from the Desèze family to the Troplongs and belonged entire to Troplong, president of the Senate and one of the highest dignitaries of France, who had enlarged it with the whole upper part of the Mondot slope: 31 hectares, about 20 of them in vines. The trade, they added, called the wine Château-Mondot or Château-Troplong-Mondot as it pleased.

The Valette-Pariente family sold the estate on July 6, 2017 to SCOR, the reinsurance group, at a price never published, and Aymeric de Gironde came from Cos d’Estournel the same year to run it. The list approved in September 2022 confirms Troplong Mondot among the 14 Premiers Grands Crus Classés. Today it counts 37 hectares of vines on Agenais molasse clay over asteriated limestone, planted 85% Merlot, 13% Cabernet Sauvignon and 2% Cabernet Franc. No herbicide, insecticide or treatment against botrytis is used, and every row is plowed by 12 horses. The estate is a B Corp, belongs to the International Wineries for Climate Action, and aims to cut its carbon by half by 2030 and entirely by 2050.

The cellar holds 42 tanks 14 meters underground. The grand vin (the estate’s first wine) ages half in new barrels, 30% in casks and 20% in wood of 1 year; Mondot, the second wine, is more than 90% Merlot and sees no new oak. The 2025, which I tasted en primeur (sold as futures, while the wine is still in barrel) in April 2026, confirms the estate’s continued rise: rich and powerful, but now delivered with greater control, and firmly among the leading names of the appellation.

At a glance

Appellation

Saint-Émilion Grand Cru

Commune

Saint-Émilion, on a hill of 60 to 110 meters

Classification

Premier Grand Cru Classé B, 2022; Michelin Guide, 2 grapes (2026)

Owner

SCOR, since 2017; the Valette-Pariente family before it

Direction

Aymeric de Gironde, since 2017

Vineyard

37 hectares of vines, from 60 to 110 meters

Soil

Agenais molasse clay over asteriated limestone Terroir of Saint-Émilion →

Grapes

Merlot 85%, Cabernet Sauvignon 13%, Cabernet Franc 2%

Farming

No herbicide, insecticide or treatment against botrytis; every row plowed by 12 horses; B Corp

Cellar

42 tanks 14 meters underground; half new barrels, 30% casks, 20% wood of 1 year

Wines

Château Troplong Mondot; Mondot

In history

Mondot, under Gérus Troplong, in the first class of 1841 at 20 tonneaux