Château L'Eglise Clinet, Pomerol, 2014
Denis described the vintage as 'very hot, a bit of water, and then a fine Indian summer, for the best of good vintages'. Produced from 90% Merlot and 10% Cabernet Franc, the 2014 L'Eglise Clinet is serious and introspective - anyone looking for a blowsy, upfront style of Pomerol should look away. This will require considerable patience. A touch of reduction, reserved initially, but there is some florality and then some glorious crème de mûre fruit, Sanguinello orange intertwined with a complex mineral core and a salty earthy quality. This is classical and serious with lots of grippy extraction and a brooding tannic structure. One for purists with time on their side!
critic reviews
The 2014 L'Eglise-Clinet has a lovely nose that is superior to other Pomerols in this flight. It's fresher with more vigor and scents of wild strawberry, cranberry, licorice and cedar. It gains delineation in the glass. The palate is medium-bodied with grainy tannins, superbly structured and a little savory (more so than four years ago). There's a little toughness on the finish, but not aggressive. It is a quintessential wine from the late Denis Durantou with a long future ahead. A second bottle tasted blind just felt a tad drier on the finish.
Deep garnet-brick in color, the 2014 L'Eglise-Clinet features an initial wave of dried herbs and black olive notes giving way to a core of plum preserves and dried mulberries with wafts of leather and tobacco. The medium to full-bodied palate is quite herbal and chewy, with rugged tannins and a bit of warmth on the finish.
Stands among the top Pomerols in the lineup. Juicy, serious, more in the Lafleur than Le Pin camp in its Left Bank intellectual quality, with graphite and pencil lead showing a serious side despite heavy Merlot dominance in the blend, with a richer fleshier fruit coming through the mid palate, cassis, then raspberry, creme caramel, turmeric, clove. Just a beautiful wine. 70% new oak.
The 2014 L'Eglise Clinet was tasted from a single bottle but from two glasses, each poured at different times before I arrived for the tasting. They were almost identical on the nose but the one poured later was more compact. It has a very pure bouquet with blackberry, myrtle, a touch of iris and a touch of garrigue (actually reminiscent of fynbos, the wild South African shrubland). The palate is medium-bodied with crisp tannin, a silver bead of acidity, wonderful precision and beguiling purity. This is an outstanding Pomerol for the vintage from Denis Durantou, sophisticated and classy, yet the bottom line is quintessentially Pomerol. Bravo Denis.