Château Clinet

The château

Pomerol has never had a classification, so an estate here is judged by its soil and its wine. Clinet has the soil: the high plateau near the church, clay and gravel over the iron pan, in 3 named blocks, La Grand Vigne on deep clay with gravel, Les Argiles on deep clay and Le Plateau on gravel. The trade saw it early. In 1886, with no official list to follow, Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, drew up a column of first growths of their own and put Château-Clinet, then under Rideau, in it beside Trotanoy, La Conseillante, L’Évangile and Lafleur-Pétrus. Pomerol has had no list since, and that column is the closest thing to one the 19th century left.

The Audy family, Bordeaux négociants (merchants who buy from the châteaux and sell on), held Clinet through most of the 20th century, and the insurer GAN after them. The man who changed the wine was Jean-Michel Arcaute, who came as director in the late 1970s, stayed on after the sale and died in 2001. The Laborde family has owned the estate since 1999 and Ronan Laborde has run it since 2004; in 2022 the family bought the neighboring Château Lécuyer, which took its holding at Pomerol to 14.9 hectares.

The vineyard is 11.5 hectares, planted 75% Merlot and 25% Cabernet Sauvignon at 6,777 to 7,200 vines a hectare, with vines 40 years old on average; the Merlot of La Grand Vigne was planted in 1934. It has held Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms) since 2021. The cellar is underground and the harvest moves through it by gravity; since 2014 it has held 17 double-walled stainless steel vats under temperature control and 1 of concrete. The fruit gets about a week of cold maceration, ferments at 22 to 23 degrees and is raised about 16 months in French oak, 60% to 80% of the barrels new. Fleur de Clinet, first made in 1997, is the second wine; it took the place of a label called Domaine du Casse.

The 2016, which I tasted in September 2025, is a model of modern Pomerol: ripe, concentrated fruit carried by tension and precision, with decades ahead of it. The 1994, which I tasted in September 2025, comes from a year overshadowed by the ones that followed, and it shows the resilience Pomerol so often has in lesser vintages: fully mature, with truffle, soft red fruit and savory complexity.

At a glance

Appellation

Pomerol

Commune

Pomerol, on the high plateau near the church

Classification

Michelin Guide, 1 grape (2026)

Owner

The Laborde family, since 1999

Direction

Ronan Laborde, since 2004; Jean-Michel Arcaute, from the late 1970s until his death in 2001

Vineyard

11.5 hectares; 6,777 to 7,200 vines a hectare; vines 40 years old on average

Soil

Clay and gravel over the iron pan, in 3 blocks: La Grand Vigne, Les Argiles, Le Plateau Terroir of Pomerol →

Grapes

Merlot 75%, Cabernet Sauvignon 25%

Farming

Haute Valeur Environnementale, since 2021

Cellar

Underground, by gravity; 17 stainless steel vats and 1 of concrete since 2014; about 16 months in French oak, 60% to 80% new

Wines

Château Clinet; Fleur de Clinet, since 1997

Next door

Château Lécuyer, bought in 2022; 14.9 hectares in all at Pomerol

In history

A first growth of Pomerol in the column of Cocks and Féret, 1886, under Rideau