Le Pin - Pomerol 2020

Wine Advocate

94 / 100

byWilliam Kelleythe4/6/2023

This estate occupies a well-draining, early-ripening site, and the 2020 Le Pin is certainly marked by the warmth and sunshine of the vintage, offering up a rich bouquet of jammy plums, kirsch, figs and licorice framed by a generous application of creamy new oak. Full-bodied, broad and expansive, it's rich and gourmand, with a layered mid-palate framed by plenty of powdery structuring tannin. While it can't match the purity and precision of the 2019, it's a strong effort.

Jeb DUNNUCK

98 / 100

byJeb Dunnuckthe3/30/2023

Coming from yields of 24 hectoliters per hectare, the 2020 Château Le Pin is all Merlot brought up in 75% new French oak, and it's the first vintage where the wine wasn't aged in all new barrels. An incredible wine, I think it surpasses the 2019, offering a classy bouquet of ripe black cherries, currants, tobacco, damp earth, and truffle, with perfectly integrated background oak that is certainly less noticeable than in previous vintages. Pure class on the palate, it’s full-bodied, deep, and concentrated, with perfect tannins, a layered, seamless mouthfeel, and a great finish. Still tight and reserved, it needs a solid decade of bottle age but is going to evolve for 30 years or more. It's a brilliant bottle of wine.

Vinous

100 / 100

byAntonio Gallonithe2/24/2023

The 2020 Le Pin is magnificent. What a wine. Seamless and exotic, the 2020 races across the palate with sumptuous dark fruit and a whole range of rose petal, spice and hard candy overtones that build into the explosive mid-palate and finish. I especially admire how the 2020 opens with some aeration. New oak is down from 100% to 70%, which really allows the purity of the fruit to shine through. Yields were 30 hectoliters per hectare, down from the more typical 35 or so, but overall production for Le Pin in bottles is much lower, as about only half of the vineyards were used. The rest went into the second wine, with the exception of a small parcel that is being redeveloped. In short: What more can I ask from a wine? Nothing.

Vinous

96 / 100

byNeal Martinthe2/15/2023

The 2020 Le Pin is a smaller production of 4,000 bottles this year, a combination of lower yields and half a hectare pulled up because of court-noué virus. There is also less new oak at 70% and it was bottled in June. It has a precocious and quite opulent bouquet with layers of pure black cherries, blueberry, crushed violet and a touch of freshly-tilled loam. The palate is medium-bodied with sculpted tannins, fleshy and poised, the new oak succinctly assimilated (an astute decision to moderate that) with a lick of Valrona chocolate towards the finish. Very persistent in the mouth, this is a superb Pomerol from the Thienponts.

TASTED

98 / 100

byAndreas Larssonthe7/6/2021

Immense richness and purity with violet, dark chocolate, layers of ripe dark berries and a very silky yet powerful palate, lingering and pure with remarkable finesse and tremendous length. Very complete already in this youthful stage should nonetheless continue to improve remarkably well.

Vinous

96-98 / 100

byNeal Martinthe6/25/2021

The 2020 Le Pin, tasted with Jacques Thienpont in Pomerol, is limpid in the glass. It has an impressively pixelated nose with layers of dark plum, raspberry, slate and subtle potpourri scents. Unlike some recent vintages, this politely asks you to be patient and then unfurls at its own stately pace. The palate is medium-bodied with supple tannins and a fine bead of acidity. This does not set out to be a powerful Le Pin, but it gently builds to deliver a very precise, quite spicy finish that has very long persistence. Superb salinity on the aftertaste, not a million miles away from Lafleur despite the differences in composition (“Don’t ask me why…” commented Jacques Thienpont when I enquired about that aspect.) Give this 4-6 years in bottle and watch it blossom over many.

Decanter.com

97 / 100

byJane Ansonthe5/25/2021

The aromatics take a few beats to arrive, and then show pure, bright blue and red berry fruits with incredible density and a pure velvet texture. This is a brilliant Le Pin - seductive, with the density and pleasure you expect from this estate, with slow delivery of pure black berry fruits and a toasted coffee and cocoa bean finish with cooler waves of gunsmoke and earth. A wine that you will take your time over, and that will give the best of itself with at least a decade in bottle. Keeps opening and deepening the longer that it stays in the glass. A yield of 24hl/ha (usually no higher than 34hl/ha so this is not so unusual). Sandy/gravel over clay soils. Harvest 14, 16 and 21 September. Malolactic fermentation in barrel. Drinking Window 2028 - 2044

Falstaff

98-100 / 100

the5/10/2021

In der Nase eine Duftwolke voller Ätherik und Kräuterwürze, balsamisch, Wacholder, floral, Herzkirsche. Im Mund mollig, cremig, lukullisch weich einerseits und dann dennoch mit einem feinen, frischen Druckaufbau, voller Schmelz und Saftigkeit, eine Vereinigung von Gegensätzen: Frische und Reiffruchtigkeit, Cremigkeit und Stoff, Mineralik und Milde. Immenses Potenzial. In den Gaumenaromen noch altersgerecht verschlossen.