2022 Château L'Eglise-Clinet, Pomerol

Turns the intensity and exoticism of the vintage on its head, unpacking it carefully, and layering up depth and character. Grilled cedar, fleshy damson and casis fruits, this is all about carefully-considered and delivered juice and flavour. Intense, with balance and carefully-extracted juice, and the precision that you want at L'Eglise Clinet, even in such an ovewheming vintage. 85% new oak, harvest September 3 to 9. Noemie Durantou and Olivier Gautrat.

Straight-up gorgeous, I'd put the 2022 Château L'Eglise-Clinet up with the top tier Pomerol in the vintage, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it surpass the 2020 as well. Ripe black cherries, violets, spring flowers, graphite, and tobacco all emerge on the nose, and it's medium to full-bodied, with a layered, elegant mouthfeel, beautiful tannins, and a great finish. Compared to the 2005 by owner Noëmie Durantou (who has done an incredible job taking over the estate after the loss of her father), this rich, concentrated, incredibly impressive Pomerol is going to need 7-8 years of bottle age but will evolve for 30 years in cold cellars.

The 2022 L'Eglise-Clinet is fabulous. Rich, deep and layered, with tremendous purity, the 2022 is already exceptionally well balanced. Dark fruit, gravel, licorice, dried herbs and lavender emerge, but only with great reluctance. Even so, there is something incredibly complete about the 2022 that is a bit hard to describe with words, but it is most definitely there! L'Eglise-Clinet is shaping up to be one of the wines of the vintage on the Right Bank.