The smallest of the great red appellations — some eight hundred hectares, no classification, no grand châteaux to speak of — and for most of history a modest satellite of Libourne. Its twentieth-century rise, carried by Pétrus and the merchants of the Corrèze, is the most complete reversal of fortune in Bordeaux.
The secret is in the ground: a buttonhole of blue clay laced with iron oxide — the crasse de fer — where Merlot achieves a density and truffle depth it finds nowhere else. Pomerol at its best is paradox: the most opulent Bordeaux and the most soil-spoken, velvet with a taste of iron underneath.