Château Clinet

Clinet takes its name from the ‘incline’ on the edge of the famous plateau; it was purchased by the Laborde family in 1998, managed by Ronan Laborde, who took over in 2023 at the grand age of 23. Under the previous owners, the wine scored 100 Parker points in 1989, Ronan recreated this performance in 2009.
Ronan calls his viticulture ‘gentle farming,’ cherry-picking ideas from both organic and biodynamic methods. Using horses to reduce soil compaction, bending vines during the growing season rather than trimming to control vigour, increasing the trellising height by 10-15 cm, improving the leaf surface area for greater photosynthesis and riper grapes.
A new gravity fed cellar in 2004 replaced oak fermentation vats with stainless steel for a better fruit expression, there’s also has a very cool, round cement vat. Limited racking reduces oxidation during barrel ageing.
Until 2006, La Fleur Clinet, was the second wine from younger vines, now with the vines averaging 50 years almost all go into the first wine. La Fleur Clinet has now become a branded Pomerol, made by the same team as Clinet sometimes including plots from the vineyard but mainly plots of other selected vineyards across the appellation.