Château l'Église Clinet 2012

A wine that wins my nomination for the title of "wine of the vintage" is the 2012 L'Eglise Clinet, a fleshy and enveloping Pomerol evocative of dark cherries and berries mingled with licorice, spices, pencil lead, truffle and rose petals. Full-bodied, broad and textural, it's lavish and expansive, with terrific depth at the core, supple tannins and a long, resonant finish. Seamless, charming and impeccably balanced, this transcends the vintage, and while it's deceptively drinkable now, it remains a mere adolescent at age 11.

This big, showy wine with lots of body and structure wowed a group of tasters who rated it higher than the first growths. Certainly a splendid effort, with smoky, ripe, concentrated fruit, but a bit of a bruiser. Denis Durantou, who died too young in 2020 aged 62, was on top form at the time.