The best Pomerol 2022 in bottle

The 2022 vintage was so dry that Pomerol winemakers petitioned for, and were granted, irrigation rights for the first time.

Some used it, though to varying degrees of effectiveness given the lack of equipment or infrastructure in place.

Scroll down for the top-rated Pomerol 2022 in bottle

Bold and seductive wines

Harvests were the earliest ever here with pretty much all the grapes picked by mid-September.

The appellation’s clay soils coped well with the drought and indeed the estates on the plateau produced some sublime wines with both richness and elegance.

Stylistically the wines are powerful and intense, fully structured with ripe fruit, chunky tannins and concentrated from the get go.

The best have acidity and freshness to counter the richness with balance overall. It’s for this reason that the wines are so compelling.

I use the words ‘serious’, ‘heady/hedonistic’ and ‘intense’ quite a lot – these aren’t shy wines, and unlike in some other appellations, they’re not wines for immediate enjoyment as a generalisation.

Seductive, fragrant and deep – these are expressive wines with expressive aromatic profiles and when they’re combined with acidity that gives energy and a light touch in the winery which gives focus they’re unbeatable.

‘Our job in 2022 was accompanying the wines from afar rather than intervening’, Lafleur’s winemaker Omri Ram told me. The team started the harvest for the reds on the 3 September in ‘beautiful conditions’.

‘We might have been expecting big, fat, flabby wines, but there’s focus and energy with concentration around’ he said. ‘We could tell the quality straight away – you could taste it in the vineyard.

‘Usually you can see the terroir better in a cool year but actually it’s very obvious in 2022. We didn’t used to get such transparency of place in hot years but it’s there.’

Less is more

In terms of winemaking, Ram said they did less in 2022: ‘The terroir gives the inherent power and density. We did even less than we would normally do in the winery. There was no reason to be super interventionist in a vintage like 2022. It’s all about taking a step back.’

The entire Lafleur range (reds and whites) including the Grand Village and Les Champs Libres wines were all excellent.

At L’Évangile, winemaker Juliette Couderc commented that in 2022, Pomerol’s climate was more like Perpignan and the Languedoc according to the Huglin Index – a tool for viticulturists to asses the daily average temperatures and the maximum temperatures and slightly modifies the calculated total according to latitude.

‘We did less pumping over and less extraction and we had to be carful about oxygen exchange during the ageing,’ she said as well as reducing the percentage of new oak.

This year the grand vin was aged in 45% new oak (as opposed to 50-55%) as well as 10% foudre and 15% amphora with the rest in used barrels.

For Olivier Berrout at Petrus the quick harvest was crucial, ‘we couldn’t wait 24 hours once we started to get good maturity,’ as well as the overall balance.

‘What I like in this vintage is that you don’t have the sense of warmth. There is no over opulence. Everything stays elegant and tight, with precise tannins.’

The ageing was shorter by two to three months to not have ‘any extra rusticity’.

As at Lafleur, ‘our job is to resist the temptation to go too far – the wine has to be good from day one’.

Berrout concluded: ‘People have changed their mindset about these kinds of vintages. There is a tendency to be more restrained now and the excellence of 2022 is down to that.’

Top wines

My standout was Château La Conseillante which was not only one of the best I’ve tasted from this estate, but also one of the most vibrant and joyful at this stage. It was relaxed and calm and totally captivating.

Close behind however was the profound Lafleur, which always takes a while to reveal its true beauty, as well as Petrus which seems to be able to handle any weather conditions thrown at the vineyard.

Vieux Château Certan was absolutely sublime with an effortless elegance – I have high hopes for the future of this wine as well as L’Eglise-Clinet that is complex and characterful. La Fleur-Pétrus also shone with brightness and depth.

Clos du Clocher, Seraphine, Clinet and Guillot Clauzel are also well worth seeking out.

It might be hard to find ‘cheap’ wines in Pomerol but there’s definitely value to be had. Bel Air, Bonalgue, de Sales, Fayat and La Pointe are solid buys at the less expensive end.

The second wine of VCC, La Gravette de Vieux Château Certan is also a stellar wine and much more like a baby grand vin than a second wine.

All Pomerol 2022 in bottle scores

COMING SOON

Tasting notes for all 800 Bordeaux 2022s

plus

BORDEAUX 2022 IN BOTTLE SCORE TABLE: Top-scoring wines with 93 points or above

Individual appellation analysis and top-scoring wines

Pauillac 2022 | Margaux 2022 | St-Julien 2022 | St-Estèphe 2022 | Pessac-Léognan & Graves 2022 | St-Emilion 2022 | Cru Bourgeois 2022 | Dry and Sweet whites 2022 | Best value 2022

Top-rated Pomerol 2022 in bottle

Related articles

• Bordeaux 2022: Our en primeur verdict and top-scoring wines
• Wine investment: Market malaise hits Bordeaux prices
• Five Bordeaux vintages to drink now