Chateau Clinet, Pomerol 2016

Tasted on four separate occasions, the 2016 Château Clinet is another brilliant wine from this estate. Showing slightly more freshness and purity than the 2015, its saturated purple color is followed by a thrilling array of crème de cassis, graphite, ground herbs, and a terrific sense of minerality. Deep, full-bodied, with building tannins, and a magical sense of purity and elegance paired with real density and depth, it needs short term cellaring and will keep for three decades.

The colour on this is deep and inky and a blast of cassis and black cherry fruit greets you on the nose. It has undeniable oak impact, but also a lovely lift that carries right through the palate, and that incredible Clinet precision. A fantastic 2016, not as exuberant as 2015 but showing the quality of the vintage where even the big-shouldered wines have a stunning lift, and a feeling of an invisible gossamer curtain holding them in place. Not a hedonist's vintage like 2009 or 2015, but cerebral in the style of 2001 and 2010. Strong coffee and grilled caramel on the finish.

Creamy, powerful but restrained, and excellent Clinet that really shows the potential and character of the estate. Love this wine, sleek, cocoa bean, bilberry and grilled blackberry, riven through with baking spice and freshly cut herbs. 65% new oak. 39hl/h yield. Ronan Laborde owner.

The 2016 Clinet is composed of 90% Merlot and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon. It was aged using the Oxoline system, in 70% new and 30% one-year-old barrels for 16 months. It has a deep garnet-purple color with cedar and smoked meats on the nose giving way to black and red plums and earthy notions with wafts of cassis and pencil shavings. The palate is medium to full-bodied, elegant, polished and vivacious with loads of red and black fruit layers and an earthy finish. Around 4,416 cases produced.

Beautiful blue fruit and earth with hints of black truffle, this has a violet and fragrant edge, too. Really complex, youthful impression here. The palate has mouthwatering fruit flavor and terrific sense of fresh energy and cut on the finish. A blend of 90 per cent merlot and ten per cent cabernet sauvignon. Try from 2024.

The 2016 Clinet has a gorgeous bouquet of copious red berry fruit mixed with truffle and undergrowth scents, all fresh and vibrant. The palate is medium-bodied with supple tannins and, like the L’Evangile that preceded it at this blind tasting, displays noticeable acidity. However, it is more knitted together than that wine, and it fans out wonderfully on a long, spicy, quite firm finish that prompted me to score lower than I might have done, because it remains a very fine Pomerol in the making. Tasted blind at the annual Southwold tasting.

The 2016 Clinet offers an intriguing combination of power and finesse. Iron, smoke, red cherry jam, blood orange and leather all power through in this racy, sensual Pomerol. In some moments, Clinet is silky and nuanced, while at other times a darker, more brooding side comes through. The 2016 has so much to offer. I would prefer to cellar it for at least a few years.