Château Le Pin

The estate is located in the heart of one of the most famous wine regions in the world, Bordeaux. Located close to the Gironde estuary in the hamlet of Catusseau, Le Pin is actually a relative newcomer to the rarified heights of wine excellence, producing its debut vintage in 1979. After paying one million French Francs for the less than 2-hectare property, Jacques Thienpont set about revitalising the relatively dilapidated winery, buying up old oak barrels from Vieux Chateau Certan and building a single, 50 hectoliter, stainless steel vat to create just 200 cases. The Château’s first wines were produced in 1982, with the flagship wine, Le Pin (literally ‘the pine tree’) coming from vines planted on a south-easterly facing slope near to where his son Edouard now lives. The vineyard’s grapes are handpicked at perfect ripeness and then sorted before being put into small open fermenters for a few days to extract colour and aromas followed by three weeks of maceration on its fine lees together with indigenous yeasts. The vineyard itself is planted with almost 100% merlot grapes with a few Cabernet Franc vines mixed in among them. After fermentation, they are transferred whole to new oak barrels (30% second use) where malolactic fermentation takes place slowly over 12 months during which time full contact is maintained with their yeast lees until just prior to bottling when fining agents are added. The character of the wine is best described as dry, powerful and lively with a long finish. The vineyard is unique in that it covers just 1.6 hectares of land and produces around 600 to 700 cases each year. To put that in context, other well-recognized producers, such as Pétrus, produce around 4,000 and Lafite Rothschild produces around 29,000 cases. The rarity of wine from Château Le Pin is one of the primary drivers of its consistently high price.