Château Clinet winery
"Prestige, responsibility and respect for the centuries-old cultivation of the land."
Jean-Louis Laborde
The history of Château Clinet, located in Pomerol, dates back to the 1770s. However, the vineyard belonging to the small but elegant château is certainly 200 years older. The vineyard is located at the highest point of the Pomerol plateau, although height is relative here: it is just 30 metres.
The decisive factor for the quality of the wines is the soil, which is unique at this point and consists mainly of gravel on deep clay with crasse de fer, i.e. iron slag, which is decisive for the quality of the best wines from this prestigious appellation. However good the soils may be, it is the way the vines are treated in the vineyard and the subsequent ageing of the grapes in the cellar that is crucial.
With Jean-Michel Arcaute, who ran the estate in the 1980s and 1990s, and after Jean-Louis Laborde and his son Ronan took over the winery, the quality of the wines has increased many times over. The eleven hectares with 88% Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, whose vines have an average age of 42 years, are cultivated organically.
Ronan Laborde, who came from Paris in 2003 at the age of just 23 to take over the management, is proving to be a gifted vineyard manager who is now deeply connected to Clinet, Pomerol and indeed the whole of Bordeaux, so much so that he was elected president of the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux winegrowers' association in 2019 - an honour that is normally only bestowed on much older members. This also shows how highly regarded the wines of Château Clinet are today.
© Photos: ChâteauClinet
