Château L'Eglise Clinet 2020

L’Eglise Clinet is considered by many to be one of the truly great offerings from Pomerol.  The name of this producer is often brought up in conjunction with icons of the Right Bank like Château Pétrus and Château La Fleur.  Yet despite the greatness of this estate, the wine is still among the less exorbitantly priced Pomerol producers out there today.  Robert Parker Jr himself once referred to this estate as a, “sleeper château of the century.”

The history of this estate dates to 1803, when a gentleman named Jean Rouchut purchased some vines near a small cemetery.  In 1882, the family purchased some plots from a neighboring vineyard, Domaine de Clinet. They decided to partner, and thus L’Eglise Clinet was born.  The property’s rise to stardom began when it was inherited by one of the legends in the wine industry, Denis Durantou. 

The Durantou family was a family of farmers, and most of their income did not come from winemaking.  Denis Durantou took over operations in 1983 and he certainly had his work cut out for him. There were no cellar floors, only dirt.  The vats were old and unclean, and they were not temperature controlled.  He made sweeping changes to the vat room and relined cement tanks with epoxy and replanted much of the 5.5-hectare vineyard. It took him only two years before he began to see the fruits of his labor.  There’s a mixture of opulence, concentration, and body in each bottle of L’Eglise Clinet and these traits began to evolve and shine during his tenure.  During the 1990s, each vintage received mounting critical acclaim and today, this opulent and lush wine is now considered one of the true stars of Pomerol. 

Denis Durantou was known as, “a winemaker’s winemaker.” He valued precision when approaching his wines and was a master at handling the Merlot grape.  Durantou’s authenticity was refreshing, and he was the epitome of a humble vigneron who did most of his winemaking in the vineyard.  He was described by some as, “a man of the soil,” whose purposes and motivation for crafting wine was simple: bringing integrity to terroir.  There was no pretense or ego that came through in his winemaking.  This is especially rare in a region where exorbitant prices continue to inflate, and a great wine is more and more difficult to purchase.  Denis Durantou’s contributions were important ones because he devoted a significant portion of his time to creating value oriented Pomerol that leveled the playing field.  In an interview with Jane Anson, he said he wanted to translate terroir, “as honestly as possible.”  Unfortunately, he passed away in 2020 after a long illness.  It was truly a great loss for the wine industry in all of Bordeaux.

Denis Durantou’s legacy lives on in those thirty-seven vintages he produced.  One can still always experience his technique, his precision, and his unique style in these wines.  His daughters are now in charge of the property with the winemaking team headed by Olivier Gautrat who worked for Durantou family for the past 20 years.

"The 2020 L'Eglise Clinet is a blend of 90% Merlot and 10% Cabernet Franc. The Merlot was picked between the 11th and the 14th of September, and the Cabernet Franc was picked on the 16th of September. It has an alcohol of 14.4% and is aging in French oak barrels, 80% new. Displaying and opaque purple-black color, it needs a bit of swirling to reveal a fascinating array of earthy notes—black truffles, charcoal, mossy tree bark and fallen leaves—over a profound core of preserved plums, blackberry preserves and violets, with a waft of tapenade. The medium to full-bodied palate has exquisitely ripe tannins and bold freshness supporting the seductively ripe, black fruit layers, finishing on a lingering fragrant earth note." Lisa Perotti-Brown, May 2021 Week 3: The Wine Advocate, (05/20/2021) Rating 97-99 Drink: 2028-2068

"The 2020 L'Eglise-Clinet is a towering wine. I am not sure what else to say. After having tasted hundreds of 2020s, L'Eglise-Clinet very clearly claims a stake for itself among the wines of the vintage. L'Eglise-Clinet can be a brute in its youth, but the 2020 is all finesse. Sweet red/purplish fruit, rose petal, blood orange and pomegranate are some of the nuances that emerge over time. Perhaps keeping the temperatures a bit cooler in fermentation explains the extraordinary finesse here. The 2020 simply can't be denied." Antonio Galloni, Vinous (June 2020) Rating: 96-98

"Always up with the crème de la crème of the vintage, the 2020 Château L'Eglise Clinet is no exception. It boasts a rich, powerful, opulent style that packs loads of ripe black cherries as well as notes of chocolate, earth, tobacco, and graphite. Possessing the pure, elegant, more focused style of the vintage, it still has plenty of mid-palate depth, gorgeous tannins, and one heck of a great finish. This beauty is a thrill a minute and will not hit maturity for another 7-8 years, but it will be a 20-year wine." Jeb Dunnuck, Bordeaux 2020 En Primeur Part 1 Rating: 96-98

"Noémie Durantou has taken over from her late father Denis with this vintage, and has produced a L'Eglise Clinet that is dark ruby in colour, and needs time in the glass as it is built and muscular. You need a little patience for the cassis, bilberry and raspberry fruits to arrange, enjoy instead the silky, velvety texture that stops the tannins being too restrictive and allows the palate to slowly expand. Not as expressive as in some vintages, but still exudes quiet confidence. A yield of 42hl/ha. Harvest from September 8." Jane Anson, Decanter, Best 2020 Wines Tasted En Primeur Pomerol, (04/30/2021)  Rating: 96