2000 Chateau L'Eglise-Clinet, Pomerol, Bottle (750ml)

RP97 "The Chateau l'Eglise-Clinet 2000 was the only vintage that Denis Durantou did not fine before bottling. It is blessed with a brilliant nose that possesses the intensity of the 1998, but I find this more focused and delineated. It has a level of purity that one can only describe as profound, scents of black cherry, cassis, cedar and black truffle unfolding with each passing moment in the glass. The palate has exquisite balance with salinity that gets the saliva flowing. There is a seam of spiciness, black pepper and rosemary that coat the mouth, but the overall style at the moment is linear and focused. The precision on the finish is enthralling, completing a fabulous l'Eglise-Clinet that rivets your feet to the spot (and maybe your palate, too?). Tasted March 2015." NM for TWA Jul 2016

WS97 "This has everything. Super class and elegance, yet ripe and exciting. Fantastic aromas of blackberries, cherries, violets and minerals. Full-bodied, with incredible raspberry, cherry, mineral and silky tannins. Very long. Winemaker Denis Durantou is a purist, and it shows. Best after 2012." WS Mar 2003

VM97 "The 2000 l’Eglise-Clinet was picked from 18 September and matured in 80% new oak. This has a magnificent bouquet with black fruit infused with bay leaf, smoke, freshly rolled tobacco and a touch of spice. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannin, quite firm in the mouth with blackberry, clove, allspice and white pepper. This has always been a very complex millennial Pomerol with a very grippy, quite masculine finish and therefore decanting is advised. Denis Durantou informed that this was the only vintage neither fined nor filtered. Tasted at the l’Eglise-Clinet vertical at the château in April 2018." NM for VM Jul 2019

JA97 "One of the wines that turned me on to the brilliance of Denis Durantou when tasted during a vertical with him and Michel Rolland back in 2014. I tasted it again this week and it more than lived up to my memories, with its understated power and rapid expansion through the palate as its exotic character becomes clear, coupled with the precise brush strokes that Durantou always managed to coax out of his wines. He died in May 2020, just as I was beginning to taste En Primeur 2019, and it seems only right to raise a glass to his memory." JA Nov 2020