Château Clinet

Château Clinet, Pomerol, 1996

Name: Château Clinet, Pomerol
Brand: Château Clinet
Price: 1275.88 GBP

88/100

Robert Parker Wine Advocate

88/100

Vinous

Available Vintages

all 1996 1998 2005 2009 2015 2020 2024

delivery

in bond

Broking

1996
12x75cl
DP
£1,275.88

delivery information

GUARANTEED PROVENANCE

Provenance in fine wine

When it comes to purchasing wine, provenance is of utmost importance. A wine’s history – where it’s sourced from and how it’s been stored – can have an enormous influence on the eventual enjoyment it provides. At Justerini & Brooks, we can trace nearly every case back to the domaine, estate or Château it originally came from; we ship from over 200 wine producers throughout the world.

Wines not bought directly from the vineyard are either sourced from trusted suppliers, with whom we share the same philosophy and rigour in buying, or from our own network of Cellarers customers. These customers’ wines are stored in optimal conditions in Octavian Corsham and, in the vast majority of cases, have been stored by us since the wine was first shipped. We do not purchase wine from auctions.

We feel it is equally important to for our customers that the case they buy and leave in storage with us is exactly the same case they subsequently have delivered. This may sound obvious and straightforward, yet we are one of very few merchants to have taken measures to ensure this.

We have created a system where every case is independent, thereby ensuring a trail of ownership and peace of mind for every customer.

The Journey

Justerinis ensures that every case of wine stored with Cellarers (Wines) Ltd has a unique identifier and customer’s name, almost unheard of in the industry as it is expensive to administer. These details are printed and placed on every case which is logged and recorded under your account name and kept in the world’s most renowned storage facility, Octavian Corsham.

This information is sent from our systems to the warehouse every day to ensure the trail of ownership is verified and upheld.

While customer reserves are stored in Corsham, our physical stocks are kept in Hoddesdon, further providing a geographical separation between customers’ wines with Cellarers and Justerinis’ own stock.

Further Reassurance

Cellarers (Wines) Ltd is a legally separate limited company from Justerini & Brooks which currently holds approximately £450 million worth of customer reserves. It is fully insured to catastrophic loss. Many merchants will state that wine in their care is fully insured, but in reality this is on an individual case basis with insufficient cover for total loss as this is prohibitively expensive. The cover provided by Octavian and Justerini & Brooks is unmatched.

Cellarers (Wines) Ltd is audited by PwC every year.

Critic Reviews

88/100

Neal Martin,

Vinous

The 1996 Clinet is a vintage I am glad to retaste, made just a few days after Ronan Laborde's father took over the property in March 1999. It spent 21 weeks in new oak plus 5 months in stainless steel. This bottle is similar to the one I tasted in 2016. Hints of smudged red fruit, undergrowth, fennel and garrigue emerge on the fully mature and open nose. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannins. It's quite contained for this era with attractive linearity—if little in the way of complexity—toward the finish. This is rustic but not unattractively so. Tasted at the château and taken from the Pomerol book.

drinking window 2019 - 2024

date of review 03/2025

88/100

Neal Martin,

Robert Parker Wine Advocate

The 1996 Clinet, a blend of 80% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Franc and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon, was bottled a few days after Ronan Laborde's father took over the chateau in March 1999, spending 21 months in new oak barrels and five months in stainless steel. There was some funkiness at first, but it seems to gain a degree of clarity: scents of smudged red fruit, undergrowth, fennel and thyme, fully mature yet somehow speaking more of the winery than the terroir. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannin, a pleasant salinity on the entry, quite structured and not the usual voluptuous Clinet, as you would expect from this vintage. It is linear and perhaps a little broody, a slightly candied finish but rustic compared to other vintages, something that Robert Parker actually suggested might happen in one of his earlier notes. Comparing the two, I actually prefer the 1986 Clinet to the 1996. Tasted September 2016.

drinking window 2016 - 2022

date of review 10/2016

product details

Specifications

Country:

Region:

Appellation:

Producer:

style:

Grape Variety:

Merlot Cabernet Franc

abv:

13.5%

allergen information

This product may contain sulphites. Full allergen information is available upon request, please call our Customer Relations Team on +44 (0)20 7484 6430.