Winemaker Notes
The Clos du Roy is a family owned 22-hectare wine estate whose wines fully express the richness and the complexity of the greatest Fronsac vines. The Clos du Roy is naturally strong ant prone to ageing, its winemaking process is lead by a consistent care for balance and delicacy.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2020 Clos Du Roy offers up a pure, beautifully clean bouquet of ripe black cherries, plums, tobacco, and cedary spices. This carries to a medium to full-bodied Fronsac with a balanced, layered mouthfeel, nicely integrated acidity, and a great finish. It's a stunning Fronsac to enjoy over the coming 10-15 years.
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Decanter
Limestone austerity comes through pretty strongly on the attack in the form of a slate and crushed stone texture, followed by plenty of freshly cut herbs and fairly subdued raspberry and blueberry fruit, with touches of richer and more mellow pie crust as it opens up. This is a classic well-balanced Fronsac with a ton of appellation typicity. Vignobles Hermouet. 33% new oak.
Barrel Sample: 92 -
James Suckling
A juicy red with blackberry, chocolate and walnut aromas and flavors. Medium to full body. Round tannins. Chewy at the end. Needs time to soften. Try after 2026.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Deep purple-black colored, the 2020 Clos du Roy leaps from the glass with vibrant notes of black cherries, baked plums and mossy tree bark, with wafts of wild mushrooms and chargrill. The medium to full-bodied palate delivers a rock-solid structure of grainy tannins and bold freshness to support the generous black fruit, finishing earthy. Barrel Sample: 90-92
One of the world’s most classic and popular styles of red wine, Bordeaux-inspired blends have spread from their homeland in France to nearly every corner of the New World. Typically based on either Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot and supported by Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot, the best of these are densely hued, fragrant, full of fruit and boast a structure that begs for cellar time. Somm Secret—Blends from Bordeaux are generally earthier compared to those from the New World, which tend to be fruit-dominant.
Home of the very first remarkable Right Bank wines, dating back to the 1730s, Fronsac and Canon-Fronsac actually retained more fame than Pomerol well into the 19th century. Today these wines represent some of Bordeaux’s best hidden gems.
Fronsac is a very small region at an unusually high elevation compared to other Bordeaux appellations. Its vineyards unroll along the oak-dotted hills bordering the river’s edge, making it perhaps Bordeaux’s prettiest and most majestic countryside.
Merlot covers 60% of the vineyard acreage; the rest of the vines are Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon. The Fronsac and Canon-Fronsac appellations are limited to the higher land where soils are predominantly limestone and sandstone. Lower vineyards along the Dordogne River mainly qualify for Bordeaux AOC status
The best Fronsac are deeply concentrated in ripe red and black berry; they have a solid mineral backbone and are rich and plush on the finish.