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Château Le Pin
Château Le Pin is, without doubt, one of the most famous names in wine. A vinous icon and one of the three great names of Pomerol alongside Pétrus and Château Lafleur. Today it is one of the rarest, most expensive and finest red wines of Bordeaux – if not the world.
Wine experts consider Château Le Pin’s key advantage to be its unique terroir and soil composition. Consisting of a sandy gravel topsoil on a bedrock of limestone, it is notably different from surrounding vineyards and widely agreed to add to Le Pin’s style.
The vineyard contains a high proportion of iron oxide “crasse de fer” in the soil which Jacques Thienpont attributes to the soils fantastic drainage and means Le Pin often performs well in wetter vintages. Neil Martin describes Le Pin’s terroir as “almost the inverse of Pétrus’ blue clay".
There are a few odd Cabernet Franc vines in the vineyard at Le Pin but the wine is 100% Merlot. 40% of the vineyards were replanted in the late 1970s, so in fine wine terms the average age of the vineyards is relatively young. For many critics, the fact that Château Le Pin can produce such incredible wines from young vines, means the future looks bright for the property.
Château Le Pin produces just 600 to 700 cases each year, a truly minuscule quantity that is dwarfed in comparison to the First Growths of the Right Bank.
To put this amount into perspective, even the relatively rare neighbouring Pétrus makes around 4000 cases per year. Such small production levels lead to consistent results every year, with the wine always expressing a beautiful integration of tannins, wonderful depth and detail.
