Community Tasting Note

Cailles wrote:

Sunday, September 19, 2021 - 12 Vintages of L’Eglise-Clinet vs La Conseillante (1993-2015): Enlightening head to head of two Pomerol heavyweights. All wines tasted single blind, not decanted. A few observations: 1) La Conseillante (LC) is the winner with 7 vs 5 wins, a higher average score (92.1 pts vs 90.8 pts) and a much better consistency over the years. 2) The LC showed more harmonious and inviting, less extracted and with a good ripeness as well as a seductive creaminess. 3) L’Eglise-Clinet (EC) only started to get good to great in the past 10 to 15 years. Most older wines showed too ripe, too extracted and often with a drying finish. 4) Not surprisingly, the best vintages got the highest scores (2015, 2010, 2009) with the highest scores awarded to the EC 2010 and 2015 (96 pts), LC 2015 (95 pts) as well as a quite strong LC 2003 (95 pts). 5) The race for the better Pomerol is open! Since 2015, L’EC got higher critic scores than LC as well as more perfect scores (11 vs 5; 17 critics/6 vintages) but I’m not yet sure if I like the riper and slightly bolder style of the EC (and LC is not really famous for its lightness or restraint either). But I got the feeling (or hope?) that the more recent vintages of EC will at least age much better than their older counterparts.

TN: Rather muted on the nose. The palate shows dense and powerful with a beautiful creaminess and lots of fresh dark fruit, coffee, herbs and minerality. Lots of substance here but without a proper decant, it never really fully revealed itself. It certainly needs a lot more time to reach its peak. There is a wall of fine tannins and a high, not yet perfectly integrated acidity. All in all, this is not yet super harmonious but is very promising.

Decanting: Not decanted, at least 2-3 hours in the decanter seem necessary

Duel: Win for L’Eglise-Clinet rated 96 pts

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