Farr Vintners Logo

Clinet 2008

RegionBordeaux
Subregion France > Bordeaux > Right Bank > Pomerol
ColourRed
TypeStill
Grape VarietyMerlot/Cabernet Sauvignon

View all vintages of this wine | View all wines by Château Clinet

Label

Tasting Notes

Another resounding success for the vintage, the opaque purple-colored 2008 Clinet (14.4% alcohol) is composed of 85% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Franc and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon. Yields of 38 hectoliters per hectare, while higher than in 2010, were still modest. Another powerful, big, large-scaled effort, the 2008 exhibits an inky/purple color as well as sweet creme de cassis, blackberry, plum, Asian spice, licorice and incense notes. Layered and full-bodied with stunning purity and a 40+ second finish, this beauty needs 3-5 years of bottle age and should keep for 25-30 years.

94
Robert Parker, Wine Advocate (194), May 2011

Dark in color and concentrated on the nose, with crushed blackberry and tar. Full-bodied, with soft, silky tannins and a long finish. Beautifully crafted.

89/92
James Suckling, Wine Spectator, April 2009

Bright, cedary black fruit on the nose, peppery. Lively and inviting. Dense and rich on the mid palate with firm but sweet tannins and a fine bright zesty finish. (JH)

17
Julia Harding MW, JancisRobinson.com, April 2009

This is the greatest Clinet since the incredible duo made by the late Jean-Michel Arcaute in 1989 and 1990. The dense purple-colored 2008 offers up beautiful floral, blackberry, and pen ink-like notes, exceptional intensity, that multilayered texture that seems to be commonplace in the top 2008 Pomerols, silky but elevated tannins, good freshness, precision, and nuance, a substantial size, and an extremely long finish with not a hard edge to be found. It should evolve for 30+ years.

94/97
Robert Parker, RobertParker.com (182), April 2009

Tasted ex-château and single blind in Southwold. Ronan Laborde has overseen a fantastic Clinet in 2008. It has an attractive floral bouquet with cassis, iodine, vanilla and crushed violets with fine delineation. The palate is medium-bodied with a gritty entry, chalky tannins but very good fruit concentration and superb delineation on the finish. Not a flashy Pomerol and with less ostentation than Clinets from the 1990s. It is a modern Pomerol, one that is supremely well crafted. Tasted January 2012.

94
Neal Martin, RobertParker.com, January 2012
Please note that these tasting notes/scores are not intended to be exhaustive and in some cases they may not be the most recently published figures. However, we always do our best to add latest scores and reviews when these come to our attention. We advise customers who wish to purchase wines based simply on critical reviews to carry out further research into the latest reports.