2018 chateau clinet, pomerol

Marketplace price

Bottle size (ML)

Why We're Buying

Leaf thinning. Green harvesting. Hand harvesting. These are all vineyard management techniques that started at Château Clinet. The continued willingness to innovate and the exceptional terroir are why the merlot will remain investment-worthy now and in the future.

Critics Scores

Wine Enthusiast

A perfumed wine with fine tannins, this is packed with a blackberry flavor and finishes with intense acidity. All the elements are in place for a wine that will reveal great elegance as it develops.

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

Deep garnet-purple in color, the 2018 Clinet begins a little coy and then, with coaxing, opens out to vibrant black cherries, kirsch, baked plums and cinnamon stick scents with hints of cloves and anise plus earthy truffles and fungi wafts. Full-bodied and chock-full of bright, energetic fruit, it has a firm, finely grained structure and long, fragrant finish. The blend is 85 Merlot and 15 Cabernet Sauvignon. Aging is anticipated to last for 16 months in French oak barriques, 75 new.

Wine Spectator

Lush in feel, with boysenberry reduction and crushed plum flavors, carried by a polished, solid structure. A mineral hint filters through on the finish, adding length and cut.

Decanter

One of the star Pomerol names showing us how it’s done in 2018. This wine absolutely stands out, being beautifully vibrant and very polished, where you feel the individual strands of flavour and know it’s clearly going to age. Here you get licks of salted rosemary sprigs right on the nose followed by a silkiness and round mouthfeel that speaks to the alcohol but you certainly don't feel it. It’s well judged, very Pomerol, and on the dark side of the fruit scale, perhaps because this is Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, not Cabernet Franc. I found Clinet a little difficult to approach in 2017, giving it a highly recommended but at the low end of the scale, but here it is roaring back to form. Drinking Window 2027 - 2044. Barrel Sample: 97

Jeb Dunnuck

The 2018 Château Clinet is 85 Merlot and 15 Cabernet Sauvignon (which is more Cabernet than usual) that was brought up in slightly more new oak than normal, aging in 75 new and 25 once used French oak. Sporting a saturated purple color, it has a massive perfume of black and blue fruits, crushed violets, spice, and orange blossom. Full-bodied, deep, expansive, and layered on the palate, it's an incredibly hedonistic and sexy wine that shows the best of this great vintage. It’s going to be hard to resist on release and knock your socks off over the following two decades or more.

James Suckling

This is a young red that really grows on the palate with so much dark fruit and firm yet luscious tannins. Full-bodied, it grows and grows on the palate. Extremely long and vivid. Solid as a rock. 15 per cent cabernet sauvignon, the rest merlot.