Château L’Église-Clinet

This is what a garage wine looks like. Visiting l’Eglise Clinet is like going into the garage of Denis Durantou’s 19th century farmhouse in the shadow of the impressive Pomerol church that gives the estate its name. It’s tiny, 4.4 ha and there’s nothing flash here, just like the personality of its late owner. The white walls of the tasting room showcase his wife’s art and you spit into a plastic bucket.
Denis Durantou took over the family vineyard in 1983, within a couple of years it started to shine. Merlot-driven wines with some old Cabernet Franc vines tucked in next to the cemetery. Even at this size everything is plot-by-plot farmed and vinified, producing just 1000-1500 cases a year. The second wine, Petit l’Eglise is made from the sandier plots.
Passionate about agriculture and soils Denis would grab and handful of sticky clay from a ditch to show you exactly what Pomerol was all about.
Sadly Denis died in 2020, his daughters Noëmie and Constance now run the domain, and also continue producing wines from the other family Châteaux; Cruzelles and Chenade in Lalande de Pomerol, Saintayme in Saint-Émilion and Montlandrie in the Côtes de Castillon, that he was particularly passionate about.