VIGNOBLES COMTES VON NEIPPERG
BORDEAUX, FRANCE
WHY BUY: La Mondotte 2009 notched a 100-pt score from Robert Parker himself, and the legendary critic awarded 99 points to La Mondotte 2005. Both have entered their prime, and are drinking beautifully right now. Neipperg's clay-limestone soils produce opulent, minerally wines of marvelously plush fruit and freshness, and you'll revel in this lineup, which also includes two wines from the excellent Château Canon-La-Gaffelière for $90 each.
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING: Robert Parker was a loud and vocal champion of La Mondotte, and the vintages we’ve got show why. The 2009 vintage earned a perfect 100 from him: “extraordinarily thick and voluptuous,” he wrote, with “a cool climate minerality,” and still an “infant” when he tasted it in 2012. He was nearly as taken with the 2005 vintage, a 99-pointer he called a “tiny luxury jewel,” with a “concentrated essence” and a “tremendously deep, full, layered personality.” Jeb Dunnuck declared the 2016 vintage a “behemoth” in his 98+-point review, with “liquid minerality emerging with time” and “a legendary Saint-Emilion in the making.” Writing about the 2018 vintage, James Suckling found “such polish and composure” and he lavished 97 points on the two Canon-La-Gaffelières: the 2019 “one of the best in a long time,” the 2023 full of “so much perfume” and “stony, salty undertones.”
OUR TASTING NOTES: What unites all these wines? If we had to pick just one word (and it’s tough with wines this complex and dimensional), it would be: buoyancy. The fruit is dark and ripe, and you’ll revel in the waves of plum and mulberry, and the way a dark cocoa note sounds in the background. There’s tremendous energy here, and for all the richness and depth, nothing ever feels leaden. On the contrary: each sip is fresh and alive. Canon-La-Gaffelière is the more aromatic one, with violets and dried herbs emerging from the glass, and a spicy, savory edge courtesy of the Cabernet Franc. La Mondotte is the more dense of the two; these wines are phenomenally plush and concentrated, yet they move, they flow, they dip and they dart. The older vintages have taken on enviable tones of tobacco and earth. The tannins come in fine and velvety, and the finishes, tinged with a wonderful chalky snap, keep going long, long after the conversation has long since moved on. Le Blanc d’Aiguilhe is the wine to keep on hand when you want a bright, crisp lift for a salad or pasta or, best of all, raw oysters.
THE STORY: A count from an old Württemberg family bought three Saint-Émilion properties in 1971, and when his son, Stephan, took over in 1983, this cravat-lover quite literally got down and dirty. Stephan brought life back into the vineyards through organic farming, and, together with the enologist Stéphane Derenoncourt, vowed to treat the vines with as much care and reverence as possible. Then as now, the approach is the same: organic farming, gravity flow into vat, plot-by-plot winemaking, and aging on the lees, over heavy-handed winemaking. By the mid-1990s the results were loud enough that a patch of vines nobody had expected much from had become one of the most talked-about names on the Right Bank. In 1999, he bought a patch of land in Castillon, and in 2012 the Saint-Émilion classification caught up with him. And he keeps evolving. The wines have gradually transitioned from the hyper-concentrated fruit of the late ’90s toward the current holy trinity: balance, tension, and freshness.
WHAT TO PAIR THEM WITH: Right Bank wines this aromatic and expressive are calling for food to match: a roast lamb with herbs, a pan-seared duck breast with apples, a dry-aged ribeye, or anything involving wild mushrooms.
FUN FACT: La Mondotte doesn’t have a château. When the vineyard got its own cellar, in 1996, the word “château” came off the name, and the wine became, simply, La Mondotte.
OUR GUARANTEE: As always, we only buy and source directly from the estates to ensure that your wines arrive with pristine provenance. Secure your bottles and cases today!
*Offer NOT valid in-store. This offer is made pre-arrival, with wines estimated to be delivered to your preferred store in Spring 2027. With the supply chain issues that we are seeing globally, there may be some unforeseen delays which could affect the ETA. All sale prices are the lowest available at Total Wine & More and ONLY valid through Concierge Sales. No further discounts or coupons may be applied. Offer not valid in KS, MI, NY, OK & TN. This offer will expire on Monday, November 2nd, 2026.