2019 L’Eglise Clinet Pomerol (Pre-arrival)

COUNTRY:
REGION:
VINTAGE: 2019
SIZE: 750ml
.Red.

CRITIC SCORE:

James Suckling 100
Jeff Leve 100
Vinous (97-99)
Wine Advocate 98+

James Suckling 100 – “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.”

Jeff Leve 100 – “The last vintage produced by Pomerol legend, Denis Durantou, (who sadly passed away May 2020), is one of his best. A testament to his devotion to his vineyards, the wine explodes with a gorgeous set of aromatics packed with flowers, chocolate, truffle, plums, black cherries, and wet earth. But it is on the palate where the magic takes place. Incredibly concentrated, rich, ostentations, silky and vibrant, the wine offers incredible purity to the fruit, which is a good thing because the finish is not something you want to lose sight of, as its showy display of chocolate-tinged, dark red fruits, licorice, spice, and black cherries lingers, builds and expands. Built to age and evolve, give it some time in the cellar and enjoy it for 3 decades with ease. This is exactly the type of wine Denis Durantou truly loved making. Owners of this beauty should toast him and his years of work at L’Eglise Clinet. I know I will. Drink from 2033-2060.”

Vinous/Antonio Galloni (97-99) – “The 2019 L’Eglise-Clinet, Denis Durantou’s last vintage, is also very clearly one of the wines of the year. A Pomerol of soaring, majestic intensity L’Eglise-Clinet dazzles from start to finish. Layers of dark fruit, gravel, spice and dried flowers unfold over time. I followed this sample for several days and it never lost any intensity over that time. I find the 2019 incredibly elegant and polished, but then again, I also tasted it a few months later than normal because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Merlot was harvested from September 18 to 26, while the Franc came all in on the 26th. Readers who can find the 2019 should not hesitate, as it is a true masterpiece. ”

Wine Advocate/William Kelley 98+ – “Unquestionably one of the wines of the vintage on the right bank, the late Denis Durantou’s swan-song 2019 L’Eglise Clinet is showing very well indeed in bottle. Unfurling in the glass with aromas of dark berry fruit mingled with notions of raw cocoa, violets, black truffle, orange rind, burning embers and loamy soil, it’s full-bodied, layered and concentrated, its velvety attack segueing into a deep, multidimensional core that’s framed by ripe, powdery tannins and lively balancing acids. Seamless but youthfully structured, this is a prodigious young Pomerol that will richly reward bottle age.

One of Pomerol’s greatest estates, the bulk of L’Eglise Clinet’s holdings are located around the winery itself, opposite Château Clinet, complemented by two small parcels, one by the church and another next to the château of La Fleur-Pétrus. The oldest vines date back to 1919, and the late Denis Durantou—whose swan-song vintage the wines reviewed here represent—was a great believer in the importance of high-quality vine genetics and propagating his own massal selections to replant here, as well as his other right bank estates. Vinification is simple but meticulous, with fermentations at relatively low temperature in stainless steel, malolactic fermentation in tank and maturation in some 80% new oak, the vast majority sourced from Tonnellerie Darnajou. The result? Wines that represent the appellation at its best: dominated by Merlot, but concentrated, structured and serious; developing extraordinary complexity with bottle age—the antithesis, in other words, of Pomerol’s alter ego, the fleshy fruit-bombs from sandy soils on the periphery of the appellation.

On a personal note, readers may forgive me if I reminisce about my first visit chez Durantou. Walking through Pomerol’s vineyards as a student one July 14th, a national holiday in France as in the United States, Denis spotted me and stopped his car. “What are you up to?”, he inquired, and when I responded that we were trying to get the lay of the land, he asked if my friends were thirsty. When we replied in the affirmative, he told us to meet him at his winery and promptly opened several bottles of the 2000 L’Eglise Clinet to slake our thirst. By the account of many who knew him better than me, that generosity of spirit was typical of Denis Durantou; and while I’m as dispassionate as possible about the wines I review, I admit that the L’Eglise Clinet in my own cellar numbers among the wines I would never part with.”

PAIRS WITH:

.Red Meat..Cheese.

$575.00/bottle

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Regional Information About This Wine:

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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, cu dicant praesent cum, id regione alienum quo, ei mollis admodum vix. Ut partiendo mediocritatem usu, id saepe facilis nec. No errem omnesque accommodare mea, vim et detracto senserit qualisque. Sit aperiri menandri definitionem at. Vel aliquam legimus ne.

Ex vix summo convenire, mei ad labores iracundia appellantur. In mel virtute scaevola, velit iriure postulant nam eu, docendi lucilius elaboraret quo ei. Ad mei putent doctus maluisset, ut epicuri patrioque sed. Mel te dicam adolescens.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, cu dicant praesent cum, id regione alienum quo, ei mollis admodum vix. Ut partiendo mediocritatem usu, id saepe facilis nec. No errem omnesque accommodare mea, vim et detracto senserit qualisque. Sit aperiri menandri definitionem at. Vel aliquam legimus ne.

Ex vix summo convenire, mei ad labores iracundia appellantur. In mel virtute scaevola, velit iriure postulant nam eu, docendi lucilius elaboraret quo ei. Ad mei putent doctus maluisset, ut epicuri patrioque sed. Mel te dicam adolescens.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, cu dicant praesent cum, id regione alienum quo, ei mollis admodum vix. Ut partiendo mediocritatem usu, id saepe facilis nec. No errem omnesque accommodare mea, vim et detracto senserit qualisque. Sit aperiri menandri definitionem at. Vel aliquam legimus ne.

Ex vix summo convenire, mei ad labores iracundia appellantur. In mel virtute scaevola, velit iriure postulant nam eu, docendi lucilius elaboraret quo ei. Ad mei putent doctus maluisset, ut epicuri patrioque sed. Mel te dicam adolescens.

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