2004 Chateau Le Pin

Chateau Le Pin is a 5-acre estate in Pomerol. The wine produced here is considered a forerunner of the “garagiste” Bordeaux now produced in the region. Though Le Pin has existed for more than a century, the estate was purchased in 1979 by Jacques Thienpont, whose family also owns nearby Vieux Chateau Certan. The estate grows 92% Merlot and 8% Cabernet Franc and produces only about 7,000 bottles a year. Le Pin receives high ratings and that combined with its scarcity often makes it one of the world’s most expensive wines. Robert M. Parker Jr. has called Le Pin “the most exotic and flamboyant of Pomerols” and adds that “Le Pin remains unequaled in terms of seduction, charm, and the sheer pleasure of drinking.”

Pomerol is the smallest of Bordeaux’s red wine producing regions, with only about 2,000 acres of vineyards. Located on the east side of the Dordogne River, it is one of the so-called “right bank” appellations and therefore planted primarily to Merlot. Pomerol is unique in Bordeaux in that it is the only district never to have been rated in a classification system. Some historians think Pomerol’s location on the right bank made it unattractive to Bordeaux-based wine traders, who had plenty of wine from Medoc and Graves to export to England and northern Europe. Since ranking estates was essentially a marketing ploy to help brokers sell wine, ranking an area where they did little business held no interest for them. Pomerol didn’t get much attention from the international wine community until the 1960s, when Jean-Pierre Moueix, an entrepreneurial wine merchant, started buying some of Pomerol’s best estates and exporting the wines. Today the influential Moueix family owns Pomerol’s most famous estate, Château Pétrus, along with numerous other Pomerol estates. Pomerol wines, primarily Merlot blended with small amounts of Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon, are considered softer and less tannic than left bank Bordeaux.