2022 L'Eglise Clinet
Buying options
Tasting notes
This is the wine that everyone is looking for. Produced in tiny quantities, L’Eglise Clinet is one of the finest wines on the Right Bank in 2022. Floral and exuberant red-fruit aromas leap from the glass with excellent definition, complemented by savoury notes of tobacco leaves, spice and white truffle which hold your attention. The palate is saline with very fine tannins, precise and straight to the point, while the wine opens up on the mid-palate – richer, with the energy and tension you expect from such a great wine. The crystalline finish offers even more generous dark red fruit and lasts for minutes. This is exemplary. Amazing work by the Durantou family producing such a complete and complex wine. You’ll be rewarded by 10 years in the cellar, but this is so balanced it can be drunk young – and will be stellar if kept for two decades. Blend: 85% Merlot and 15% Cabernet Franc
Critic scores
Average Score
James Suckling
James Lawther MW, jancisrobinson.com
More reviews and scores
The 2022 L'Eglise-Clinet has a complex bouquet, earthier than its peers, sous-bois-infused red berry fruit, cedar and tobacco, again gaining intensity in the glass. The palate is medium-bodied with fine, very supple tannins matched by a silver thread of acidity. It closes in a little towards the finish, though you can already feel the persistency on the aftertaste. Excellent. Tasted blind at the Southwold tasting in London.
Lastly, the 2022 Château L'Eglise Clinet is 90% Merlot and 10% Cabernet Franc that was harvested from the 3rd to the 9th of September, with its élevage spanning just 12 months in 85% new French oak followed by roughly four months in tank before bottling. It's another riveting 2022 in the vintage that brings remarkable depth and intensity while at the same time staying light on its feet, graceful, and balanced. Ripe black cherries, cassis, graphite, leafy tobacco, and damp earth and floral notes all shine here, and it's full-bodied, has a concentrated, powerful mouthfeel, ripe and perfectly polished tannins, and a great finish. It deserves 7-8 years of bottle age and will have 30-40 years of prime drinking. It will probably merit a perfect rating at maturity, and if this doesn’t put a smile on your face, nothing will.
This is a wine that needs time in the bottle and in the glass, serious and well built, with body and character, and merits extra ageing. The texture brings us into the heart of Pomerol, or rather its heights, with luscious but reserved quality and the intellectual edge of L'Eglise Clinet. Crushed roses and violets set against dark cassis and blueberry fruits, just brilliant. Harvest September 3 to 9 harvest. 85% new oak, harvest September 3 to 9. Noemie Durantou and Olivier Gautrat.
About the producer
Ch. l'Eglise-Clinet is one of the most unassuming wine estates in Bordeaux. You'd probably drive past it if you didn't have prior knowledge of its vinous output. There's no ostentatious gateway nor sweeping gravel drive.