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2016 Château Nenin

Removed from a professional wine storage facility; Purchased from a private collector; Consignor is second owner

Ends Sunday, 7pm Pacific

RATINGS

96James Suckling

Aromas full of crushed blackberries and blueberries with fresh mushrooms and sandalwood. Full-bodied, very tight and focused with fabulous density of fruit in the center palate and a long, flavorful finish. Shows strength and, at the same time, finesse.

94Jeb Dunnuck

...gives up a terrific bouquet of black cherries cassis, graphite, and some gravelly minerality and damp earth notes. These carry to a medium to full-bodied, concentrated yet elegant wine that has fine tannins, good acidity, and a great finish. It's just a classic, beautifully balanced, elegant wine that does everything right.

93The Wine Advocate

...opens with beautiful Black Forest cake, baked blackberries and blueberry compote scents over a core of Chinese five spice, sandalwood and lilacs. Medium to full-bodied and laden with black fruits and spicy layers, it has a gorgeous velvety frame and just enough freshness, finishing long and vibrant.

93Wine Spectator

Features a core of dark boysenberry, açai berry and black currant fruit that is direct, pure and polished, carried by solid but integrated tannins through a slightly muscular finish. Offers a lingering licorice snap accent and a nice twang of iron-edged minerality. Well-built.

93Vinous / IWC

...lovely freshness to the dark plum and blackberry fruit, while beams of supporting tannin give the wine its shape, focus and overall feel.

16+ Jancis Robinson

Rich and opulent with a layer of spice. Lots of substance. And more tannins than some others in this flight of its peers.

PRODUCER

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.”

REGION

France, Bordeaux, Pomerol

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.

VINTAGE

2016 Château Nenin

"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.