Chateau Clinet, Pomerol 2020

The 2020 Château Clinet checks in as a blend of 80% Merlot and 20% Cabernet Sauvignon, brought up in 80% new French oak. It's a rich, yet gorgeous wine with a wonderful sense of freshness in its ripe blue and black fruits as well as tobacco, chocolate, and damp earth. Full-bodied, beautifully balanced, and elegant on the palate, it has perfect tannins, a layered, elegant mouthfeel, and one hell of an impressive finish. One of the finest Pomerols in the vintage, it will benefit from just 3-5 years of bottle age and keep for two decades.

What a beautiful young wine, showing so much finesse and tension, with ultra-fine tannins and subtle and long flavors and character. It’s medium-bodied with extremely silky tannins that grow on the palate to a seamless finish. Harmonious. Another fine Pomerol for the cellar. Drink after 2027.

Chiselled and impressive, with shoulders and clear depth to the fruit, it's a big wine, don't underestimate that, but there is real succulence to the damson fruits, black cherry jam and smoked caramel. Pomegranate and redcurrant add pulses of fresher fruit, and give lift to the plentiful tannins. Plenty to love here - this is extremely Clinet and extremely Pomerol. 80% new oak. Ronan Laborde owner.

Deep garnet-purple in color, the 2020 Clinet needs a lot swirling to coax out notes of stewed plums, blackberry pie, red currant jelly, and black olives, leading to wafts of tilled earth, underbrush, and cedar chest. The decadently rich, full-bodied palate is packed with layer-upon-layer of opulent black fruits with compelling red berry accents and a firm, velvety texture, finishing on a lingering ferrous note. It’s a wine that will require a little more patience than some of the other top Pomerol 2020s, but it will be a real showstopper in 7-10 years.

The 2020 Clinet is hugely impressive, as it was from barrel. Dark and imposing, with notable vibrancy, the 2020 offers up an exotic mélange of black cherry, gravel, incense, plum, game and licorice. I would give this a few years in bottle, as the tannins are pretty imposing. Cabernet Sauvignon is so distinctive here.

The 2020 Clinet has held on to that precious bouquet with heady scents of black plum, cassis and fresh fig, more blue fruit percolating through with time. Remarkably, it retains fine delineation and disguises that payload of 15% alcohol. The palate is intense on the entry, quite structured, and granular in texture, with a healthy dose of cracked black pepper and a grippy but pure finish. The 20% Cabernet Sauvignon is crucial in keeping this Clinet on an even keel, with traces of graphite towards the fresh finish. It will benefit from several years in bottle but stands as a very fine Pomerol, but unequivocally no shy wallflower.

The 2020 Clinet offers up aromas of minty cherries, blackberries and cassis mingled with hints of licorice, loamy soil and rose petals. Full-bodied, broad and rich, with a layered mid-palate underpinned by powdery tannins that assert themselves on the youthfully firm finish, it's impressively balanced for a wine at 15% alcohol, but it remains a rather burly, powerful Clinet.