Château Le Pin

The land that became Le Pin belonged to the Loubie family from 1924, its grapes sold off in bulk for undistinguished Pomerol blends until 1978. In 1979, Leon Thienpont, the father of Alexandre Thienpont, persuaded his relative Jacques Thienpont to buy the roughly two-hectare property for one million French francs. At the time, the cellars amounted to little more than a garden shed and the property's small house needed real work; Alexandre Thienpont lived there for a period while the estate got on its feet. The Thienpont family's roots in Pomerol run deeper still: they have worked in the wine trade since 1842, when Kamiel Thienpont founded a négociant business in Etikhove, Belgium, and in 1924, the same year the Loubie family acquired the future Le Pin plot, Georges Thienpont bought the neighboring Vieux Château Certan.

• Jacques Thienpont's early investment at Le Pin was a single 50-hectoliter stainless steel vat; the debut 1979 vintage aged in used oak barrels handed down from Vieux Château Certan
• The 1979 vintage sold for 100 French francs a bottle, cheaper than Vieux Château Certan at the time, and still struggled to find buyers
• The vineyard grew by 0.6 hectares in 1984 with the purchase of land previously used as a vegetable garden, followed by further small purchases in 1985 and 1986
• In the early 2000s Le Pin added a prized run of vine rows next to the existing plot; a neighboring parcel with similar terroir was lost to a purchase by Christian Moueix in 2012

The 2.7-hectare vineyard sits near the hamlet of Catusseau on clay, gravel, and sand soils with iron oxide deposits; the gravel runs close to three meters deep in places. Vines average around 35 years old, with some dating to the 1950s, planted at a density of about 6,000 vines per hectare. Le Pin is planted almost entirely to Merlot, effectively 100% in the finished wine, with a few co-planted rows of Cabernet Franc that are not blended into the Grand Vin. Malolactic fermentation in barrel, now a Le Pin signature, began by necessity rather than design: in the estate's early years there were not enough tanks to hold all the wine, so the team moved it to barrel after alcoholic fermentation as an experiment, and it worked. Starting in 2010, Jacques Thienpont began building a new winery, designed by the Belgian architects Robbrecht & Daem; it was completed in 2012, in time for the 2011 vintage, replacing the estate's original modest cellar.

• Fermentation takes place in seven small stainless-steel tanks ranging from 15 to 42 hectoliters; the wine is moved by gravity throughout the cellar
• The wine ages in 100% new French oak, with blending completed prior to bottling
• Jacques Thienpont declassifies any lot, or an entire vintage, that does not meet his standard; the whole 2003 crop was declassified and no Le Pin was released that year
• There is no formal second wine; a small amount of Trilogie, a blend of three different vintages made from declassified lots, is produced instead

Prior to the 1982 vintage, Le Pin was an obscure new Pomerol property struggling to sell its wine like everyone else in the appellation, and Robert Parker's initial take on the estate was lukewarm. His review of the 1982 vintage changed that: Parker awarded it 100 points, describing it as "a flamboyant, exotic, lavishly rich, concentrated, low acid fruit bomb" with "remarkable aromatic complexity." From that point, Le Pin became the first wine of Bordeaux to sell for prices matching, or exceeding, the First Growths, pricing that would come to rival, or exceed, even Pétrus and Lafleur. Parker and The Wine Advocate later awarded a second and third perfect score: to the 2009 vintage, one of 18 wines from that vintage to reach 100 points, and to the 2010 vintage, one of just 10 wines from that vintage to reach 100 points. Wine Cellar Insider critic Jeff Leve has also rated a Le Pin vintage a perfect 100 on his own scale: the 2022.

• 1982: 100 points from Robert Parker and The Wine Advocate
• 2009: 100 points from Robert Parker and The Wine Advocate, one of 18 wines from the vintage to score 100
• 2010: 100 points from Robert Parker and The Wine Advocate, one of 10 wines from the vintage to score 100
• 2022: 100 points from Wine Cellar Insider's Jeff Leve, on his independent scale
• Le Pin remains unclassified within Bordeaux's official hierarchy; its reputation rests on critical acclaim and collector demand

Le Pin is not the most consistent Pomerol from year to year, but at its best produces, in Jeff Leve's words, "an expression of Merlot that is without equal." Wine Cellar Insider names the estate's best vintages as 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2012, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2006, 2005, 2001, 2000, 1998, 1990, 1989, 1985, and 1982. The recommended drinking window is 10 to 35 years after the vintage; younger vintages benefit from two to three hours or more of decanting, while older bottles may need only enough time to clear the sediment.

• No Le Pin was released in 2003; the entire crop was declassified
• Best served around 15.5°C (60°F), per Wine Cellar Insider's serving notes
• Recent yields have varied by vintage: 35 hectoliters per hectare in 2021 against 20 in 2025
• The 2018 vintage marked the first time cultivated yeasts were used in fermentation at Le Pin, adopted because of that year's higher alcohol level

Alexandre Thienpont, who also manages Vieux Château Certan, oversees the Le Pin vineyard, while Jacques Thienpont makes and sells the wine. Guillaume Thienpont serves as winemaker. In December 2021, Diana Berrouet-Garcia was placed in charge of winemaking at Le Pin, having previously held the same position at Château Petit Village. In April 2010, Jacques Thienpont expanded the family's holdings with the purchase of five hectares in Saint-Émilion; the wine from that vineyard is sold under the name LIF.

• Alexandre Thienpont manages both Vieux Château Certan and the Le Pin vineyard
• Jacques Thienpont makes and sells the wine; Guillaume Thienpont is winemaker
• Diana Berrouet-Garcia has led winemaking since December 2021, after previously working at Château Petit Village
• Jacques Thienpont's Saint-Émilion property, purchased in 2010, produces wine sold under the name LIF

Le Pin holds no official classification within Bordeaux's hierarchy; its prestige rests entirely on critical acclaim, scarcity, and collector demand. The estate takes its name from the lone pine tree situated near the winery. At its best, the wine is, in Jeff Leve's assessment, "an expression of Merlot that is without equal," though he also cautions that Le Pin "is not the most consistent Pomerol producer." Visitors lucky enough to secure a tasting appointment at the estate are expected, by house custom as reported by Wine Cellar Insider, to actually drink the wine rather than spit it out.

• No official Bordeaux classification; prestige rests on scarcity and critical acclaim rather than a formal ranking
• Jacques Thienpont's exacting standards extend to declassifying underperforming lots, or, as in 2003, an entire vintage
• The estate's tiny scale, 400 to 600 cases a year, keeps it among the rarest wines produced in Pomerol
• The Loubie family's grapes were still being sold into blended, undistinguished Pomerol wine as late as 1978, the year before Jacques Thienpont's first vintage under the Le Pin name

No reachable official website for Château Le Pin was found (www.le-pin.com resolves to a parked/ad-placeholder page, not the estate's own site; the Thienpont family's thienpontwine.com blocked automated access). This article is built entirely from secondary sources, fetched as raw page text via curl and tag-stripping, never a summarizing tool: The Wine Doctor (Chris Kissack), Bordeaux Profile Index, "Le Pin: The Thienpont Family," https://www.thewinedoctor.com/bordeaux/lepin_2.shtml; Wine Cellar Insider (Jeff Leve), "Le Pin Pomerol Bordeaux Wine, The Complete Guide," https://www.thewinecellarinsider.com/bordeaux-wine-producer-profiles/bordeaux/pomerol/le-pin/; Wine Cellar Insider, "2009 Bordeaux Scoop! Robert Parker Gives 18 Wines 100 Pts!" (March 2012), https://www.thewinecellarinsider.com/2012/03/2009-bordeaux-scoop-robert-parker-gives-18-wines-100-pts/; Wine Cellar Insider, "Robert Parker 2010 Bordeaux Scores Out. 10 Wines hit 100 Points!" (March 2013), https://www.thewinecellarinsider.com/2013/03/robert-parker-2010-bordeaux-scores-out-10-wines-hit-100-points/; CultWine product listing quoting Robert Parker's Wine Advocate review of the 1982 vintage, https://cultwine.com/products/1982-chateau-le-pin; JamesSuckling.com, "Winemaker Guillaume Thienpont on 2023 Le Pin: Classic in the Making?" (April 2024), https://www.jamessuckling.com/videos/winemaker-guillaume-thienpont-2023-le-pin; The Wine Independent, "Le Pin" (August 2025), https://thewineindependent.com/articles/le-pin-3/, consulted for a name-spelling cross-check, not cited directly in article prose. Last verified 2026-09-09. See conflicts.json for a name-spelling discrepancy between sources on the current director of winemaking, and report.md for figures carried in the prior version of this article that no fetched source supports.