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Wine Description
The Story
Château Trotte Vieille is a 1er (Premier) Grand Cru Classé Saint-Emilion and Borie-Manoux highest classified and most prestigious Château. Trottevieille is a very old estate. A pergament from the year 1453, kept at the Chateau today, shows that the funny name of Trottevieille had already been used for this estate in the 15th century. In the 14/15th century there apparently lived an elderly lady at the estate. The people from the village of Saint-Emilion called her „the old trott“ most probably due to her funny way of walking down the hill to Saint-Emilion. For this reason, in honour oft he namegivng lady, the second wine of Trottevieille is called „Dame de Trotte Vieille“.
Some of the Cabernet Franc vines here date back to the time before Phylloxera. They are thus the original French Cabernet Franc grape plants and have an age of around 150 years. The roots of these vines have made their way down into the limestone rock, sometimes deeper than 20 metres. Cabernet France often makes the majority of the blend of Trottevielle, making it one of the longest living wines.
Vintage 2000
BORDEAUX 2000 – A DREAM VINTAGE
Weather conditions / Vintage 2000 has from the very start been proclaimed as one of the best vintages of modern times. In spring 2003, I've had many opportunities to find out, if we really have a true dream vintage in our hands.
During harvest 2000, while doing "personal inspection" in the vineyards, I noticed that something extraordinary big was on its way. Grapes looked extremely healthy.
While sorting table was rolling, I observed, that there were few leaves, stalks and weeds among the grapes. That's why sorting out grapes went so easy and quick. It must be one of hallmarks of 2000 vintage, because normally even the great vintages require a lot of work at sorting table.
2000 vintage is classic, extravagant and extremely long-lived Bordeaux with dark, extremely dense wines, which have enormous concentration of fruit, length and superbly concentrated tannin. The tannin is not allowed to dominate, because it's well wrapped up by fruit. A scent of sub-maturity is only present in few wines. One of this vintage's trademarks is an intense and deep aroma of dark berries, like blueberries, blackberries and black cherries.
All red grape varieties reached perfect maturity, including Bordeaux' most capricious and unruly grape variety, Petit Verdot. Petit Verdot gives the much meeded contribution of backbone and power to the wines.
Also the grapes for whites, like Sauvignon Blanc, Sémillon and Muscadelle, did ripe perfectly and produced tremendously fine dry white wines. Sweet white wines turned unfortunately to be a few light, elegant and charming wines, which were based 100% on September pickings. Beginning on the 11th October, it rained heavily in Bordeaux and it continued until the end of the year.