Need help? Call +44 (0)20 7793 7900 or email wine@goedhuiswaddesdon.com.
Ch Clinet always has a flamboyant style with masses of flavours of hot, sweet, dark fruits. With the same style, this will give pleasure and appeal to Clinet lovers.
Ch Clinet always has a flamboyant style with masses of flavours of hot, sweet, dark fruits. With the same style, this will give pleasure and appeal to Clinet lovers.
A blend of 90% Merlot, 9% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 1% Cabernet Franc (the highest percentage of Merlot ever) the Clinet 2013 was picked between 30 September until 12 October, finishing with the two Cabernets. Ronan Laborde told me that it was the most compact harvest he had undertaken: 4½ days within 13 days, the fruit selected through an optical sorting machine. The level of new oak is 60%, up from 2012, because Jean-Michel thought the fruit was good enough, with an IPT of 85 compared to 75. The nose takes some time to unfurl, broody and reticent at first, revealing redcurrant and cranberry scents mixed with dried flowers with time. The palate is well balanced with quite linear tannins, the oak nicely integrated and lending this Clinet good depth. It is a more masculine Clinet without the length of a great Château Clinet, but clean and pure. It will need 5 or 6 years to unwind after bottling.
A terrific success and star in this vintage, this blend of 90% Merlot, 9% Cabernet Sauvignon and the rest Cabernet Franc came from a mere 25 acres of vineyard and averaged 33 hectoliters per hectare, with close to 13% natural alcohol. The entire harvest took place September 30-October 12. The wine is impressive in this vintage, its beautiful, dense, blue/black color is followed by a striking nose of creme de cassis, blackberry fruit, charcoal and a hint of camphor. The wine is rich and medium to full-bodied, displaying surprising texture, depth and breadth. This is a rich wine with good acidity and ripe tannin. It is a relatively big boy for the vintage and should drink well in 2-3 years and last up to 15 or more. It is so good, it is clearly a sleeper of the vintage, even though Clinet has been doing fabulous work for a number of years.
Ronan Laborde explained that they undertook some really serious work in the vineyard and this resulted in yields of 33hl/ha – so not too catastrophic. This is a very intense wine which shows surprisingly tender fruit. With a hefty 85 IPT this is one of the inkier-hued wines of the vintage but it is exotic and hedonistic. They suffered no hail at all here and only lost Merlot thanks to the poor flowering. The very warm period in July is to thank for the exotic fruit notes. I find this sort of wine very enticing and exciting given its sexy frame and lissom alcohol and this makes it one of the rare 2013s which I scored higher than their 2012.
The small sub-region of Pomerol is situated north-east of the industrious city of Libourne. Pomerol's soils are predominately iron-rich clay with a smattering of gravel that produce wines with extraordinary power and depth. As a result of this clay-dominance, it has the highest percentage of Merlot planted in all of Bordeaux. Certain châteaux are produced exclusively from this grape, but most incorporate smaller quantities of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc as well. Despite its hefty (if not exclusive) proportion of Merlot, many people think of wines from this region as separate entities. As one wine aficionado stated recently, "It's not Merlot. It's Pomerol." Despite the region's small size, Pomerol contains some of the world's most sought after (and expensive) wines including Pétrus, Le Pin, Lafleur, l'Evangile and Vieux Château Certan. Unlike other Bordelais subregions, there is no system of classification. The châteaux are traded on reputation alone.
