2011 Le Pin, Pomerol, Bordeaux

2011 Le Pin, Pomerol, Bordeaux

Product: 20111014192
Prices start from £12,500.00 per case Buying options
2011 Le Pin, Pomerol, Bordeaux

Buying options

Available by the case In Bond. Pricing excludes duty and VAT, which must be paid separately before delivery. Storage charges apply.
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6 x 75cl bottle
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Description

Le Pin 2011 boasts an intense nose of cedar with very slight hints of the new oak that will meld into the wine during elevage. On the palate, it is rich and firm with both redcurrant and brambly fruit and a touch of spice. The finish is very impressively long and extremely intense. This is a wine of supreme intensity but without overt weight, and it looks to be an outstanding Le Pin made with a new precision from Jacques Thienpont's new chai. This is top of the tree in Pomerol.
Nicholas Pegna, Berrys’ Asia

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Critics reviews

Wine Advocate95/100
Caramelized fruit, coffee bean, espresso, black cherry liqueur, licorice and spice aromas jump from the glass of this dark ruby/plum-colored wine. Concentrated and silky-textured, this full-bodied, voluptuous wine is a brilliant example of the 2011 vintage. Give it 2-4 more years in the bottle and enjoy it over the next 15 or more.
Robert M. Parker, Jr. - 30/04/2014 Read more
Wine Spectator93-96/100
Delivers dark, captivating black tea, fig and plum notes, with nicely rounded flesh and a long, smoldering feel. The tannins sneak up slowly but are prevalent in the end, with a loamy hint emerging steadily through the finish, which opens slowly and forcefully. This is very solid and among the top wines of the vintage.
Wine Spectator's 2011 Top-Scoring Red Bordeaux
James Molesworth, Wine Spectator, April 5, 2012 Read more
Robert Parker94-96/100
Coming in at 13.3% natural alcohol, this 2011 is a blockbuster Pomerol revealing loads of black currant, kirsch, and raspberry fruit intermixed with hints of licorice, spring flowers and spicy, smoky oak. As always, there is an exoticism to this dense purple-colored offering, and its opulence and flamboyance are hard to resist. This stunningly proportioned, flamboyant Pomerol is somewhat atypical for the vintage. It should drink well for 15+ years.

The Thienpont family, the proprietors of Le Pin, picked their Merlot on September 12-13. The tiny crop was a result of difficulty during flowering, a few days of extreme heat at the end of June, and the overall drought conditions that have persisted through March, 2012.
Robert Parker - Wine Advocate - April 2012

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Decanter17.5+/20
Restrained and elegant in style. Great purity of fruit, a silky texture and tannins and a very long finish. Somewhat in the mould of the 2006 and 2008? Read more

About this WINE

Le Pin

Le Pin

Le Pin is the most expensive wine in the world. Jacques Thienpont purchased the meagre 1.6 hectares of land for one million francs in 1979. The Thienpoints named their wine Le Pin after a solitary pine tree that shaded the property. By acquiring tiny adjoining plots of land, Jacques has doubled the size of Le Pin to five acres. The south-facing vineyard on a well-drained slope of gravel and sand is planted with Merlot (about 92%), and a small amount of Cabernet Franc.

Le Pin's soil is a mixture of gravel and clay with a little sand and is exceptionally low yielding (between 30 to 35 hl/hc). The grapes are hand-harvested and are fermented in stainless steel before being matured in`200%` new oak barriques for between 14 and 18 months. Dany Rolland, wife of cult-oenologist Michel Rolland, is a consultant here.

Le Pin produces just 600 to 700 cases each year (Lafite Rothschild produces approximately 29,000 cases of wine a year and and Pétrus about 4,000) and its rarity is one of the driving forces behind its high prices. Le Pin produces super-concentrated, decadent, lush and lavishly oaked wines - they can be drunk young but are best with 7-10 years of bottle ageing.

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Pomerol

Pomerol

Pomerol is the smallest of Bordeaux's major appellations, with about 150 producers and approximately 740 hectares of vineyards. It is home to many bijou domaines, many of which produce little more than 1,000 cases per annum.

Both the topography and architecture of the region is unremarkable, but the style of the wines is most individual. The finest vineyards are planted on a seam of rich clay which extends across the gently-elevated plateau of Pomerol, which runs from the north-eastern boundary of St Emilion. On the sides of the plateau, the soil becomes sandier and the wines lighter.

For a long time Pomerol was regarded as the poor relation of St Emilion, but the efforts of Jean-Pierre Moueix in the mid-20th century brought the wine to the attention of more export markets, where its fleshy, intense and muscular style found a willing audience, in turn leading to surge in prices led by the demand for such limited quantities.

There is one satellite region to the immediate north, Lalande-de-Pomerol whose wines are stylistically very similar, if sometimes lacking the finesse of its neighbour. There has never been a classification of Pomerol wines.

Recommended Châteaux : Ch. Pétrus, Vieux Ch. Certan, Le Pin, Ch. L’Eglise-Clinet, Ch. La Conseillante, Ch. L’Evangile, Ch. Lafleur, Trotanoy, Ch. Nenin, Ch. Beauregard, Ch. Feytit-Clinet, Le Gay.

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Merlot

Merlot

The most widely planted grape in Bordeaux and a grape that has been on a relentless expansion drive throughout the world in the last decade. Merlot is adaptable to most soils and is relatively simple to cultivate. It is a vigorous naturally high yielding grape that requires savage pruning - over-cropped Merlot-based wines are dilute and bland. It is also vital to pick at optimum ripeness as Merlot can quickly lose its varietal characteristics if harvested overripe.

In St.Emilion and Pomerol it withstands the moist clay rich soils far better than Cabernet grapes, and at it best produces opulently rich, plummy clarets with succulent fruitcake-like nuances. Le Pin, Pétrus and Clinet are examples of hedonistically rich Merlot wines at their very best. It also plays a key supporting role in filling out the middle palate of the Cabernet-dominated wines of the Médoc and Graves.

Merlot is now grown in virtually all wine growing countries and is particularly successful in California, Chile and Northern Italy.

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When is a wine ready to drink?

We provide drinking windows for all our wines. Alongside the drinking windows there is a bottle icon and a maturity stage. Bear in mind that the best time to drink a wine does also depend on your taste.

Not ready

These wines are very young. Whilst they're likely to have lots of intense flavours, their acidity or tannins may make them feel austere. Although it isn't "wrong" to drink these wines now, you are likely to miss out on a lot of complexity by not waiting for them to mature.

Ready - youthful

These wines are likely to have plenty of fruit flavours still and, for red wines, the tannins may well be quite noticeable. For those who prefer younger, fruitier wines, or if serving alongside a robust meal, these will be very enjoyable. If you choose to hold onto these wines, the fruit flavours will evolve into more savoury complexity.

Ready - at best

These wines are likely to have a beautiful balance of fruit, spice and savoury flavours. The acidity and tannins will have softened somewhat, and the wines will show plenty of complexity. For many, this is seen as the ideal time to drink and enjoy these wines. If you choose to hold onto these wines, they will become more savoury but not necessarily more complex.

Ready - mature

These wines are likely to have plenty of complexity, but the fruit flavours will have been almost completely replaced by savoury and spice notes. These wines may have a beautiful texture at this stage of maturity. There is lots to enjoy when drinking wines at this stage. Most of these wines will hold in this window for a few years, though at the very end of this drinking window, wines start to lose complexity and decline.