1990 | Chateau Le Pin

This offers a perfect marriage of lightly mulled raspberry and boysenberry fruit, with delightful allspice, juniper and alder notes that are so fine-grained they have a cashmere feel. Hints of rooibos, bergamot and black tea weave in on the finish.

Reviews:

• Wine Advocate: The 1990 Le Pin has more in common with the 1982 than most wines of this vintage. This wine exhibits concentrated fig, blackberry, creme de cassis, kirsch, roasted coffee, herb, and spice box characteristics, and incredible amounts of glycerin as well as velvety tannins. Still tasting like an adolescent, it rocks and rolls across the palate in a glorious manner.

• Vinous: Tasted at the Pomerol Comparative Exploration tasting in London, the 1990 Le Pin has a mature bouquet with singed leather, clove, smudged black fruit and mint, turning a little feral and animally in the glass. It does not have the sophistication of the 1989 Le Pin tasted alongside and felt unruly in comparison. That theme continues onto the palate is plush tannin, a mixture of black and blue fruit, slightly lower in acidity than the 1989 and yet utterly seductive. There is a giddy plushness to this Pomerol, deep and enveloping, yet with 26 years on the clock, it has lost some of the tension that I found ten or fifteen years ago. It is as if this Le Pin has just decided to let it all hang out in middle age, no longer desires to keep up with the likes of Lafleur or Petrus. Nevertheless, it remains just one gorgeous Pomerol from Jacques Thienpont.

Producer Information

Le Pin is a tiny 2.7-hectare (6-acre) property in the Pomerol district of Bordeaux. It was created in 1979 by the Thienpont family (owners of nearby Vieux Château Certan), and quickly rose to prominence to vie for the title of most expensive wine in the world. The 100 percent Merlot wine is extremely concentrated and lush; it can often be drunk young but is best with a decade of aging. The Le Pin vineyard is south-facing and sits on well-drained gravel and sand soils which give extremely low yields. There is also a small amount of Cabernet Franc planted. However, this not used in the Le Pin wine, and is gradually being replaced by Merlot. Grapes are harvested by hand and fermented in stainless steel before 14 to 18 months' aging in first one new oak barrel, and then a second. Production is obviously tiny, totaling just 600 to 700 cases per year – compared with 4,000 for Petrus and 20,000 and more for the Médoc First Growths. Le Pin is named after two pine trees at the vineyard. There is no true château on the property, though a new winery was opened in 2011, replacing an old farmhouse basement.

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