1996 Clinet Bordeaux Blend

Bordeaux Blend - 750ML
Reg: $134.94
$119.94
This product is
out of stock
Most orders placed M-F by 3pm (PT) ship same day.
Orders placed on a weekend or holiday will ship the next business day.
Shipping Info

Free storage available
Wine Storage

REVIEWS

WA 91 JR 90 NM 90
WA 91

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate, April 1999

This is a backward, muscular, highly-extracted wine with a boatload of tannin, thus the question mark. The saturated plum/purple color is followed by an aggressively oaky nose with scents of roasted coffee, blackberries...
JR 90

Jancis Robinson's Purple Pages, February 2011

(17/20) Mid rusty crimson. Meaty, savoury, very lightly oxidised nose. Sweet, fresh, well-defined palate opener. Lots of density and a bit of dustiness. Very good balance and roundness though it is drying out.
NM 90

Neal Martin's Wine Journal, July 2013

Served from an ex-chateau double magnum, the 1996 Clinet has a mature nose even in this larger format with blackberry and raspberry fruit, perhaps a little more animally than I recall other examples (just a little...

WINE DETAILS

Color & Type Red
Varietal Bordeaux Blend
Country France
Region Bordeaux
Sub-region Pomerol
Vintage 1996
Size 750ML

Chateau Clinet lies at the highest point of the Pomerol Plateau on the Gunz gravel terrace, origin of the appellation’s most prestigious crus. It’s a remarkable terroir of old gravel and deep clay over a subsoil of clinker. The vines sink roots 5 metres deep where they are gently warmed by naturally occurring volcanic stones.

The estate has been producing some of the world’s most prestigious wines for centuries. The Belleyme Map, published in 1785, shows the terroir of Chateau Clinet was already exclusively under vine.

Since the 1980s, Jean-Michel Arcaute has managed the vineyard. He has been instrumental in revolutionizing them, replanting with Merlot instead of Cabernet and introducing hand-harvesting, manual selection, and a longer cuvaison.

Merlot accounts for the vast majority of grape varieties (90%) with the remainder being made up of Cabernet-Sauvignon (9%) and Cabernet Franc (1%). The total area under vine is 11.3 hectares and the average age of the vines is 40 years.

The vines are grown with total respect for the environment, giving pride of place to tilling and grassing rather than using chemicals and the human hand over machines.

The vinification process for Chateau Clinet aims to maintain the freshness, finesse and character. Harvesting is always carried out manually, and following meticulous selection, gravity delivers the grapes to the vats. The cellar layout allows good traceability from the vineyard to the end of the aging period. The production of a well-defined parcel can be followed in each vat, then each barrel.

On average, fermentation and maceration lasts for one month, whereupon the wine is transferred into barrels. ‘Free run’ wines are separated from ‘pressed’ wines, and then aged separately. The wine is aged in French oak barrels. around 60 percent new with the remaining being one-year old.