The past few days have been a heady, pleasure-filled time for me in Hong Kong. The emotion of exploring the now finished 18,000 sq ft space of Club Bâtard over three floors of the Pedder Building was easily topped by seeing it come to life – the tables set, the woks and pans fired, the mingled scents of Cantonese, French and other favourite dishes, with wine here, and whisky there, filling the high-ceiling rooms, the sounds of music, conversation, and glasses clinking. Boom, Club Bâtard got real.

It was both a comfort, and an honour then to have Neal Martin, one of my oldest friends in the wine world come to be our first guest speaker at the club. When I met Neal in 2003 (when we were both children) he was working London-based for one of Japan’s biggest fine wine importers, and had just begun writing about wine online for his blog Wine Journal, and I had just started The Fine Wine Experience’s wine tasting events in London, to which he was soon a regular. Since then he was first shoulder-tapped by Robert Parker, and later Antonio Galloni (Vinous.com), and has carved out for himself a well-deserved reputation as one of the world’s leading wine critics. Along the way, he won some prestigious writing awards, including for his first book, the self-published Pomerol in 2012. Long out of print and now hard to find, it’s a favourite of mine because it is very Neal – it conveys the reference information we might need for the topic, but doesn’t prioritize that as much as it tells the stories, conveys the personalities, and gives the sense of Pomerol as a place, a community, as much as a wine – something the photographs by Johan Berglund that illustrate it enhance. 

I really love Pomerol, so an evening of Pomerol chat and wine with Neal and members was a real treat for me. As Neal reminded us, it’s a small place – 785ha (1.5x the size of Gevrey, for example), and even then, its star-powered wines really come from the better, more gravelly terroirs up on its plateau sector. Pomerol wasn’t a moneyed, or famous until very recently. It’s real moment of traction came arguably (Neal did) when Parker pushed it into the limelight (and boy did he own the limelight) from the 1980s onwards. It’s uncontroversially the world’s best spot for Merlot, though more Cabernets (esp. Franc) are being planted as the climate warms. Personally, I love the extra dimension in fragrance, flavour and texture ripe Cabernets bring to Pomerol in a supporting role, livening up wines that can otherwise at times drift too far toward the languid (Petrus, and its iron-rich blue clay-planted Merlot excepted).

There isn’t room here to go into everything covered at our dinner, but below you will find my tasting notes and ratings for what we drank. Each participant was asked to vote for their two favourite wines of the night, so the results for that are noted below also.

At The Fine Wine Experience (source of all the wines below) we have stock of some of the wines – that list can be found below my tasting notes. There are worse rabbit holes to go down than Pomerol. Why not explore for yourself?

All notes below, Linden Wilkie, 13th September 2024, Hong Kong

2017 Château Le Gay
90% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Franc
Full clear ruby; a lovely fragrance of sweet fruit, a touch of fruitcake richness, some musk, this is an alluring scent; supple and lush on the palate, creamy, with dark fruit, vanilla, spices, dark Xmas spices on the long finish. This is a sumptuous, round, ripe-styled Pomerol. With air, the aromas revealed further complexity lurking beneath the still quite primary fragrance. The tannins are very finely polished on the finish. A very good ’17, and example of Le Gay. 
94
One vote for wine of the night

2017 Château La Violette
100% Merlot
Full clear ruby; a nose largely similar to the 2017 Le Gay served along side, though a little more red fruit – red cherry, this is a complex, subtle nose; supple, rounded, sweet with a savoury edge, very very fine tannins and shape, and a long, perfumed finish. An immaculately manicured feel to this wine.
93
One vote for wine of the night

2016 Pensées de Lafleur
55% Bouchet (Cabernet Franc), 45% Merlot
Complex ripe nose, florals and spice; fleshy, elegant texture, with a plump mid-palate feel, and a little warmth, though it feels balanced, sweet, long and scented. With air this becomes super complex, with a gentle stickiness on the finish. Showing beautifully, perhaps still more to give.
95
No votes for wine of the night

2014 Vieux Château Certan
80% Merlot, 19% Cabernet Franc, 1% Cabernet Sauvignon
Fine mid-ruby garnet; a fine nose, it’s immediately apparent in this line up how much cooler in expression VCC ’14 is – almost herbal, super fragrant, and floral – the Cabernets are in the minority but they are felt; fine on the palate, gently plush, bright, very scented, with fine structure, balance and elegance. Very long. This is a ballerina Pomerol, now just coming into drinking, though it needs plenty of air, and the style is less ‘obvious’ in its appeal.
95
One vote for wine of the night

2010 Château La Conseillante
80% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Franc
Semi-clear full garnet, with a touch of development at the rim – fuller and less evolved than the ’14 VCC; a fine nose, very sweet, some perfume, an opulent aroma; sweet cherry, fine tannin, there’s some tannin here, a more built and still quite primary Pomerol, a little alcoholic warmth, but very fine. There’s tremendous sweetness of perfectly ripe fruit here, this vintage of La Conseillante feels quite full on the palate, and will benefit from still further cellaring as there’s a real frame to it. 
94
Two votes for wine of the night

2008 Château L’Eglise-Clinet
85% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Franc
Full clear ruby; a fine red and black cherry-scented aroma, fine purity of expression; this is so impressively fine and elegant on the palate, and the purity is really noticeable, perfect grape maturity in display, this château’s little salty/savoury note on the finish, zero greenness – which stands out in the cooler ’08 vintage. Fine complexity and allure though this stays close to the still fairly primary fruit expression. Surely a standout example of the vintage, truly beautiful wine.
96
Eight votes for wine of the night

2005 Château L’Evangile
85% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Franc
Still a full garnet colour with a narrow mature rim; a sweet, complex, spicy aroma, some appealing earthy notes; full on the palate, with a plush feeling to the fruit, a somewhat blunt impact of vanilla, spices and wood phenolics from the oak, that even at 19 years of age don’t feel fully knit, and that give a superficial feeling to what is undoubtedly very good fruit beneath. A sturdier, old school wine, and although nice enough, a relative disappointment for the quality of this address and vintage.
90
No votes for wine of the night

2000 Château Clinet, magnum
90% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Franc
Full garnet; a sweet nose with a high-pitched scent of confit cherry tomato and sweet raspberries, a little candied note too; the palate shows very good flesh, sweetness (and zero unripeness), a firm yet suave structure framing it, a little iron coming through, everything feels well-knit, and coherent. Plenty of pleasure in this wine, drinking well now.
94
No votes for wine of the night

1998 Château Gazin
85% Merlot, 12% Cabernet Sauvignon, 3% Cabernet Franc
Bright garnet; a sweet, classic, older-generation aroma, with a little leafiness in the mix; lush on the palate, with lovely sweet fruit, and a leafy, cooler red fruit profile, there is both sweetness and savour. Overall, it is medium weight, and also a little rustic in style, but it is also in a perfect point within its drinking window, fully open, with a little savoury complexity and bottle age, but also plenty of fruit.
92
Five votes for wine of the night.

1990 Château Latour à Pomerol
A bright, sweet nose, good clarity of aroma, and a real sweetness, including a honey note; sweet, plush feel to this, at first I was impressed by the real depth on display here, but with air I became less impressed by a pruney quality to the wine, I became more simple rather than more complex, with air. (Possibly sufficient bottle variation with this wine, as it was also one of Neal Martin’s wines of the night).
89
Five votes for wine of the night

1983 Château La Fleur Petrus, magnum
Bright garnet; a sweet, meaty aroma; the palate is deliciously sweet, open, palate-coating in richness, a sumptuous mature wine, with a long sticky-fine finish of fruit, ripe resolved tannins and glycerin, it is easy to see why this was so widely liked this evening. But for me, a note of Brettanomyces knocked it back, and with air, began to cloak its many virtues. 
89
Five votes for wine of the night

1983 Château Trotanoy
Fine-hued garnet with a mature rim; a sweet, meaty, medicinally fragrant and biscuity nose – sesame crackers in the complex mature aroma; sweet, medicinally complex too on the palate, lovely fruit, a little grip still in the tannin, a little menthol/mint note that works well. The toasted sesame, and real sweetness of very ripe fruit returns – it’s a little singed in fact, and this lends a touch of dryness to the texture. It’s well-stuffed enough that it doesn’t feel like it is drying out anytime soon however. Drinking very well still. A very good old school Pomerol.
92
Two votes for wine of the night