Bordeaux 2015 Primeurs: Château L’Église-Clinet
Just down the road from Château La Conseillante and Château Lafleur, Denis Durantou has done his usual job of turning out an excellent array of wines, capped off by Château L’Église-Clinet and his limited-production second wine La Petite Église, which like Les Pensées de Lafleur is also a largely predetermined selection from the vineyard. I have provided some opinion and discussion of the other wines in my 2015 Castillon & Co. and 2015 St Emilion: Grand Cru Classé & Grand Cru reports, so here I focus solely on his wines from Pomerol.
“It was a vintage in which you needed to pick Merlot at the right moment, not too late, it was the same for Cabernet Franc”, was the opening statement from Denis Durantou. “It is a great vintage, but only for châteaux who picked at the right time. People who picked later, and who extracted too much, they will make marshmallow wine”.
I was delighted to learn of the concept of marshmallow wine (I think my teenage ‘children’ would be interested too) nevertheless I chose instead to quiz Denis further on the character of the vintage chez Durantou. “We had dry weather in June and July, which gave us berries with thick skins. Then in September we had cold nights, and it it was not rainy. Picking was easy, like in 2012, we had perfect weather. I picked sooner than my neighbours. The end result is, I feel, better than 2005, but it is difficult to compare. It is certainly more tannic than 2005, and 2009, and 2012. It is less tannic than 2010, obviously, I also feel it is a little less fresh than 2010. It has a higher acidity than 2009”.
