x
  • Country ranking ?

    649
  • Producer ranking ?

    20
  • Decanting time

    5h
  • When to drink

    now to 2035
  • Food Pairing

    venison with Red Wine Sauce

The Tb points given to this wine are the world’s most valid and most up-to-date evaluation of the quality of the wine. Tastingbook points are formed by the Tastingbook algorithm which takes into account the wine ratings of the world's best-known professional wine critics, wine ratings by thousands of tastingbook’s professionals and users, the generally recognised vintage quality and reputation of the vineyard and winery. Wine needs at least five professional ratings to get the Tb score. Tastingbook.com is the world's largest wine information service which is an unbiased, non-commercial and free for everyone.

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Le Pin picks NFC tags for authentication

Prestigious Bordeaux winery Château Le Pin, which produces some of the most expensive wines in the world, has partnered with NFC object identification specialist Selinko to attach NFC tags to wine bottles so users can authenticate the vintage with the tap of their phone.

The NFC tags are located behind the label on the winery’s Vintage 2010 range, with bottles selling at €2,000 to €2,500 each. Users who download Selinko’s free Android app can tap their NFC phone against the bottle to authenticate the product as well as access other information including the serial number, information on the vineyard and the grape variety in the wine.

Selinko told NFC World: “Le Pin is probably the most prestigious French Bordeaux Pomerol and they were looking for a solution to protect their wines. That’s when we placed NFC tags behind the labels to make it possible to see if the bottle is authentic with one tap.

“When a customer buys a bottle, they know it’s protected by the Selinko logo in the bottom corner. Every case contains a flyer that gives the customers instructions of how to download our app and how to access the content on the tag.”

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The Story

Château Le Pin, or simply Le Pin, is an unclassed Bordeaux wine from the appellation Pomerol. There has never been an official classification of Pomerol. Even so, Chateau Le Pin commands prices that put it at levels equal to the best wines of Bordeaux. The unusually small estate is located on the Right Bank of France’s Gironde estuary, and its wine is periodically one of the world's most expensive red wines. Le Pin was the first of the "garage wines" or microchateau that have become cult collector wines. These wines defy the traditional classifications.
 

Madame Laubie, whose family had owned the plot since 1924 sold the vineyard in 1979 to the Belgian Thienpont family for 1 million francs. Developed by Marcel and Gérard Thienpont on less than 2 hectares, wine was produced by microcuvée from a farmhouse basement. The property was given the name Le Pin by the Thienponts from a solitary pine tree that shades the property. By acquiring tiny adjoining plots of land, Jacques has doubled the size of Le Pin to five acres.

Occasionally the most expensive wine in the world, continually receiving high ratings from wine critics and produced in extremely small numbers, Le Pin bottles are a constant presence on the wine auction market. Le Pin produces just 600 to 700 cases each year.
Currently managed by Jacques Thienpont, additional tiny plots of land have been acquired. Some years no wine is produced.

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Vintage 2012

The 2012 Bordeaux vintage report.

The 2012 Bordeaux vintage is a year for vineyard management and workers. Call it a winemakers vintage, or change your tune and call it vineyard managers vintage. Either descriptor works perfectly. Wineries with the financial capacity to take the necessary measures in the vineyards during the season, coupled with the willingness to severely downgrade unripe grapes, will produce the best wines. Even then, it will be a difficult vintage with small quantities of wine. From start to finish, the 2012 Bordeaux vegetative season and harvest were stressful for the winemakers, the vines and with the grapes being vinified, the winemakers.

 

The 2012 Bordeaux vintage did not get off to a good start. After a cold winter and a wet spring, the April rains soaked the Bordeaux wine region. After the April rains, there were outbreaks of mildew, which required spraying. The month of May was warmer than April. Things calmed down a bit in June. All this resulted in late and uneven flowering. This resulted in small clusters of berries that ripened at different times, lowering quantities and requiring serious work in the vines and intensive sorting at harvest.

 

Although a growing season is never over until it is, uneven flowering never bodes well. Late flowering pushed back the entire vintage by 2 to 3 weeks, depending on the château. Generally speaking, late harvests are not generally a harbinger of good things to come.

 

If everything that happened up to the end of June didn't offer what happened next offered additional challenges with the 2012 Bordeaux vintage. After an average July, Bordeaux experienced a heat wave torrid weather and drought in August and September which stressed the vines, particularly the young vines. At one point, temperatures soared to 42 degrees Celsius, or 107 degrees! Other days crossed 100 degrees. It was extremely hot and dry. The vines stopped and the vintage was on track to be even later than expected. Towards the end of September, things improved with the much-hoped-for combination of warm days, cool nights and desperately needed rain, which helped nourish the vines. The first few days of October offered reasonably warm temperatures during the day, coupled with cooler weather at night for growers with Merlot ready to pick.

 

In the Médoc, you had to hurry and wait. Tom Petty could have exploded with “Waiting is The Hardest Part” because producers had to wait because Cabernet Sauvignon had difficulty maturing. It was already October. Conventional wisdom says that at one point there was little to gain by waiting and more to lose, so the 2012 Bordeaux harvest began to take place. Some estates began picking young Merlot in late September, but most held back until around October 1, and a few producers waited a week or more. Most growers brought in all their fruit by mid-October.

 

Pomerol is usually the first appellation to harvest, due to their Merlot dominated vines. It is interesting to note that the picking took place simultaneously on the left bank on October 1st. Many properties in Pessac Léognan started their harvest before Pomerol. Château Haut Brion began work on their young Merlot vines on September 17th and Château Haut Bailly was not far behind, with a start date of September 27th. Most castles were in the thick of things on October 4, although Domaine de Chevalier waited until October 8.

 

While the pleasant, cooler weather was initially forecast to continue, on October 8 things changed quickly when massive amounts of rain fell across the entire Bordeaux region. With accompanying temperatures in the mid-60s and higher in some areas, winemakers were concerned about the potential for Botrytis, due to the humid tropical conditions. At this point, the fruit had to be picked, regardless of the state of ripeness. Like last year with the 2011 Bordeaux vintage, maturation was uneven. It wasn't just the bunches that weren't ripening, individual grapes in bunches reached varying degrees of ripeness, making sorting more important than ever. Optical sorting was used more than ever with the 2012 Bordeaux harvest.

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Tasting note

color

Deep and Purple

ending

Long, Extensive and Pure

flavors

Leather, Mineral, Blackberry, Blackcurrant, Raspberry and Vanilla

nose

Intense, Generous, Pure and Complex

recommend

Yes

taste

Balanced, Well-Integrated, Complex, Youthful, Medium-bodied, Harmonious, Rich, Vigor and Silky tannins

Verdict

Well made and Exotic

Written Notes

A gorgeous nose of violets, jasmine, sweet spices and cedar. Amazing generosity on the palate without any heaviness and velvety, plush texture. Great intensity and freshness with impressive depth. Seamless from start to finish with linger flavours. 32 hl/ha and about 10% less production than 2011. This is a gorgeous wine that stands out in this challenging vintage.

95 points

  • 95p

The 2012 Le Pin exhibits a surprisingly opaque purple color, moderately high tannin, deep mocha and jammy berry characteristics, unexpected headiness, an alcoholic blast and lots of glycerin and fruit. This beauty should come into its own in 4-5 years, and last for 15 or more.

This 100% Merlot cuvee is a fresher, lighter-styled effort than this estate's blockbuster 2009 and 2010, but it is surprisingly intense with plenty of weight, clout and class. Yields were a tiny 30 hectoliters per hectare (due to poor flowering and excessive drought), and the wine was produced from fruit harvested between October 2 and 5.

  • 94p

Ruby. Vanilla, blueberries, leather and anise, layered nose. Fresh acidity, ripe tannins, velvety texture, elegant and fruity yet refined, long. 94-96

  • 95p
Good looking normal size bottle and has bottom neck level. Colour is ruby red, youthful and deep . On the nose it is wide, intense, ripe, seductive and generous. The taste is harmonious, rich, refined, with silky tannins, full-bodied, with well-integrated, complex and balanced structure. On the palate it is layered and has dried-fruit, herbs, vanilla, truffles, blackberry, leather, plum, mineral and toasty flavours. The finish is long, extensive, flavorful and pure. This wine is sophisticated, fine and excellent. I paid around 1k-3k€ a bottle. Perfectly stored bottles are still very worthy and will last well for another 20-30 years and decant at least 2h before tasting. I do recommend.
- (Tasting note created by Tb's AI)
  • 98p
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Information

Origin

Pomerol, Bordeaux

Vintage Quality

Above Average

Value For Money

Satisfactory

Investment potential

Below Average

Fake factory

None

Glass time

3h

Drinking temperature

16
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