Château Tronquoy 2005

The 2005 vintage in Saint-Estèphe

Vintage benchmark: 97/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)

Vintage character: Drought without any halt in ripening, together with cool nights, gave a legendary vintage: concentrated, with firm tannins and very long aging potential.

Overall reading of the year’s season across Saint-Estèphe. An estate can depart from it sharply, in frost or hail years, where two neighbours did not make the same vintage. What this particular wine actually gave is on its technical sheet and in the scores above.

Blend of the 2005 vintage

Figures from the 2005 sheet

• 55 hl/haYield

Winemaking

The harvest was in perfect health and the exceptionally sugar-rich berries made temperatures rise very quickly, hence extra vigilance to avoid extracting too much and too fast. We vinified at low temperatures, 27° to 28°, to preserve the fruit. Malolactic fermentations took place quickly and the lots selected for the Grand Vin were put into barrel in mid-December.

Ageing

Proportion of new barrels: 25 %.

Terroir

The terroir of Tronquoy-Lalande has a soil ideally suited to the flourishing of Merlot. This variety accounts for the majority of the plantings (52%) and points to a distinctive feature that sets Tronquoy-Lalande apart from its neighbours, where Cabernet Sauvignon dominates. Cabernet Sauvignon follows at 39%, then Petit Verdot (6%) and Cabernet Franc (3%). The vineyard enjoys an ideal exposure, very favourable to the ripening of the grapes. The soil is composed of a mixture of gravel and clay more than 8 metres thick. Gravel has the particular quality of being very free-draining, while clay holds water at depth and releases it according to need. The vineyard lies 23 metres above sea level. The gravel rises formed naturally over the centuries encourage the drainage of rainwater. In addition, the Gironde estuary, very close by, acts as a thermal regulator.