2011 Château Nenin

Château Nenin is a 61-acre estate in Libourne, in Pomerol The historic estate was owned by several of the Pomerol’s leading wine making families in the 19th and 20th centuries, but in 1997 it was purchased by Michel and Jean-Hubert Delon, who also own Leoville-Las-Cases. The vineyards are 60% Merlot and 40% Cabernet Franc. Since the Delons have been in charge there has been a second wine, Fugue de Nenin, in addition to the flagship Château Nenin. Robert M. Parker Jr. has written that with Jean-Hubert Delon in charge of the estate and the winemaking, “Nenin is quickly surging to the forefront of Pomerols.”

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.

"Since being resurrected (in '98) under the ownership of the Delon family (Leoville Las Cases), Nenin is quickly surging to the forefront of Pomerols...producing wines that are rich and generous."-Robert M. Parker, Jr.