The vineyard was created in the mid-17th century by the Fontemoing family, Libourne wine merchants who owned several other properties, including Château Canon. They were followed by the Giraud family, and at the end of the 17th century the wine was known as Pomerol-Giraud Cru de Trotanoy. The name Trotanoy comes from a characteristic of its exceptional terroir: a mixture of clay-gravel and clay soil. In dry, hot periods, the high proportion of clay would cause the soil to become rock-hard and difficult to work, earning it the name trop ennuy (too much trouble). In the 19th century, the domaine covered 25 hectares, but sales, splits and and inheritances reduced it to half this size by the late 1920s. After the war, Trotanoy was sold to the Pecresse family and then to Jean-Pierre Moueix in 1953.

The property's vines, with an average age of 25 years, escaped the frosts of 1956, but many of them were weakened, and a vast replanting programme was initiated in the 1970s. As a result, the wines produced in the 1980s were lighter. Vinified using the same methods as Petrus, the wines are matured for 12 to 18 months in oak barrels, with a percentage of new wood that varies from 50 to 66% depending on the year. Unfiltered before being bottled, the wines present a remarkable richness and intensity, developing aromas of cherries and raspberries. Extremely consistent even in lesser vintages such as those of the 1970s, Trotonoy has now returned to its former glories and since 1995 has been snapping at the heels of Petrus at tastings.