La Mondotte: Vineyards
The tiny 4.5-hectare vineyard (almost exactly the same size as Château Lafleur in Pomerol) is situated just below Château Troplong-Mondot. Indeed, the first time I discovered La Mondotte was when I was working my way along the back roads, up on the slopes above Château Bellefont-Belcier and Château Larcis-Ducasse, towards Château Troplong-Mondot. As I navigated my hire car along the narrow lanes I passed an immaculately presented if rather compact château, built in exactly the same style and using the same materials as those used for many others in the region, and yet clearly a new or newly refurbished construction. I didn’t realise it at the time, but I had just discovered the new cellars that Stephan von Neipperg had erected in order to make real his new vision of La Mondotte.
The vineyards are typical of this part of the plateau, with soils of clay and limestone up to 60 cm deep in places, over a bedrock of limestone. The vines are 75% Merlot and 25% Cabernet Franc, a fairly typical composition for the appellation. A small plot added to the estate in 1988 brought the overall age down a little, nevertheless across the vineyard the vines currently average approximately 50 years.
Work in the vineyard (pictured below – although I don’t think the young vines in the foreground are part of the La Mondotte vineyard) in the early days tended towards the sustainable, with spraying restricted in terms of frequency and dose as much as possible. Some practices were more organic though, with organic compost – a blend of manure, clay and straw – used as required. In 2014, however, La Mondotte along with Château Canon-la-Gaffelière was certified as fully organic, and both estates were also awarded ISO 14001 certification for their environmental management systems.
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