2023 Château Le Pin Pomerol

Shows the exotic nature of Le Pin with blackberries, milk chocolate and hints of spices, as well as coffee beans from the ripe seeds in the grapes. It's medium-bodied with focused and creamy tannins. Also plenty of nectarine and clementine character. This is so classic Le Pin at the finish. It lasts for minutes in your mouth. Silky and flavorful. 100% merlot magic.

Le Pin 2023 is 100% Merlot and it has a pH of 3.75. It is aging in 65% new oak barriques and it has a deep garnet-purple color. It is quite shy and whispery to begin, offering glimpses at floral notions of wisteria and red roses, leading to spicy notes of cinnamon and clove, before opening out to a powerful core of wild blueberries, juicy blackberries, and black raspberries, with an underlying waft of forest floor. The medium to full-bodied palate is electric, delivering vibrating notes of black berries and purple flowers, framed by super-fine-grained tannins and amazing tension, finishing on a lingering, ferrous note. Magic!

The 2023 Le Pin was picked between September 11 and 23 at 39 hl/ha-four pickings according to age of vine and plot. It matured in 65% new oak (this figure has gradually reduced since the 2020 vintage). They had no mildew, due to the free-draining gravel soils, though the Thienponts saw more at l’If. I love this nose. This is so pure and refined, it seems to embrace and gently hug the senses, like your favorite or uncle. It blossoms in the glass to reveal subtle crushed stone and grazphite notes. The palate has unerring symmetry finely chiseled tannins and a linear, penetrating finish that goes on and on. This is one of the best vintages of Le Pin I have tasted from barrel, more serious and more floral than some recent vintages.

Sinew, precision, stunning depths through the palate, less exuberant than some vintages of Le Pin and yet the texture is immediately arresting, with rich peony and iris aromatics, fleshy raspberry and damson fruits but also grip, orange peel, cigar box, tobacco leaf and a languorous stretch out through the palate. 65% new oak (2019 was the last year to be 100% new oak). Yields of 40hl/h, even with a touch of green harvesting, very unusual at Le Pin.