Château Clinet

Pomerol 2019

• 

  Vintage 2019
  100 points

This is amazingly perfumed with amazing aromas of fresh violets and pink roses. Blackberries and dark fruit. Black truffle and stone. It’s full-bodied with fantastic structure and tannins. Yet, it’s weightless and so beautiful. The length is ethereal and goes on for minutes. You taste it and it’s so wonderful that you want to drink it. One for the cellar. Better in 2028, but already a joy.

• 

  Vintage 2019
  98

A blend of 90% Merlot and 10% Cabernet Franc, aged in 70% new oak, the 2019 L'Eglise-Clinet is deep garnet-purple in color. It is a tad shy to begin, with coaxing revealing notes of black raspberries, kirsch, and preserved plums, leading to suggestions of cinnamon toast, charcoal, fertile loam, and iron ore with an exotic waft of cardamom. Medium to full-bodied, the palate already possesses incredible balance, giving up layer upon layer of black and red fruits with loads of mineral accents and a firm, grainy texture, with this stunning wine finishing very long and beautifully perfumed. "I think 2019 was a pleasure," said Noëmie Durantou - daughter of Denis and now overseeing the viticulture and winemaking for the Durantou estates. "I wouldn't like to look for challenges, especially when you compare it to the challenges in 2018 and 2020. The vines were in a great cycle, there was a little drought in July and August, but when you put it into context it was not bad. We had enough rain at the end of July and August. The grapes were a pleasure to taste. There is something very obvious about the vintage, from the barrel to the bottle. It has always been very easy to drink, such a pleasure. The yields were just right, the berries were not too big or small, the skins were the right thickness, nothing was extreme. Obviously I'm not that impartial because dad was there. It was his last vintage. It was a wonderful vintage for him to say goodbye to us. When tasting the grapes with dad in the vineyard, walking with Olivier [Olivier Gautrat, the winemaker at the estates, working alongside Denis for 20 years], he said that he was happy to finish with that. I was so angry at him - how dare you say that! But dad was so happy with this vintage. It might come across as an anecdote, but for a man like dad, it wasn't. If it was bad, he would have said it. When the frosts came he ran outside at 3am in his pjs, as though that was going to protect the vines! That's how he was."