Denis Durantou 1957-2020

BY NEAL MARTIN | MAY 18, 2020

Vines never mourn the passing of a winemaker. They stay rooted to the ground, oblivious to the loss. Without a moment’s pause they burst into life for another year, another vintage. L’Eglise-Clinet is no exception. However this year those vines will bear fruit without the man to whom they are indebted, Denis Durantou. After months of illness, Durantou finally succumbed last Friday - a winemaker gone far too soon. Pomerol will never quite be the same again.

I cannot remember when I took this picture of Denis Durantou, but I do remember asking him to pose as if standing to attention. He kept laughing trying to keep still.

Denis Durantou was born in 1957 in Perigueux. His father, Jacques, was a high-ranking civil servant assigned to positions around France, therefore he appointed Pierre Lasserre as régisseur to keep his small vineyard in Pomerol ticking over. Skipping a generation only piqued his son’s interest in winemaking, one that dovetailed into a budding passion for French cuisine. Durantou’s vinous epiphany came when his grandfather René offered his nine-year old grandson a sip of the 1929 l’Eglise-Clinet. “It is because of that I make wine,” Denis once confided. As a teenager he helped construct the concrete vats and during military service he became an outstanding swimmer – he was always a sporty type, what you might call a “pocket dynamo”. But the vines were calling. After oenological studies at the University of Bordeaux Durantou worked alongside Lasserre who reasonably enough had designs to purchase the vineyard himself. His apprentice could only watch from the sidelines, although this seemed to strengthen his resolve to take charge at l’Eglise-Clinet and restore a Durantou at the helm.