2011 Château Le Pin

Community Tasting Notes (10) Avg Score: 95.1 points

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  11/21/2023 - Jeff Leve wrote: 95 Points

  Bright red fruits, with accents of citrus peel, dried flowers, spice, and cocoa create the nose and palate. Medium-bodied, and, on the elegant, fresh, refined, side of the style range, than opulent in character, this is drinking quite well today. Drink from 2023-2033.

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  12/26/2022 - dnnk88 Likes this wine: 94 Points

  My first ever Le Pin, thanks MD! Can’t say I was blown away but still, pedigree stuff.

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  5/15/2022 - Cailles wrote: 96 Points

  6 Vintages Le Pin vs Petrus vs Lafleur vs Other Pomerol: All wines tasted single blind, not decanted. Served in 6 vintage flights with a alternating 4th Pomerol added to every flight. A few observations: 1) Le Pin handily won this tasting, for me (4 out of 6 vintages at 96/97 pts) and the consensus. Made in a charming way, with loads of perfectly integrated, luxurious oak-derived notes, this wines drink well young and works very well in a larger tasting like this were you can’t follow the wines over an evening. Complex, round, intense, sexy yet elegant. 2) Lafleur came in second, despite mostly only hinting at its potential with very high complexity, it’s wonderful, typical herbal and earthy notes, all embedded in an impeccable, light structural frame. But they need time. 3) Most vintages of Petrus underperformed tonight (all below 95 pts). They would have needed more time to open up and come together. 4) 2009/10 vintages are great and unsurprisingly got the highest scores, 2008 confirmed it status as a Bdx vintage that is excellent to drink today. More information/rankings in the tasting story.
  
  TN: Explosive nose with so much intensity, lots of coffee, toast, wrapped around a ripe but not too ripe dark fruit core, some herbs too. On the palate this is very elegant and light with not the same high intensity, lots of herbs and some minerality, no hard edges, good freshness and good tension. Super creaminess. Medium+ length. With time, the palate gets more intense displaying same sexy and hedonistic toasty notes. Yes, they worked with a lot of oak here but it’s still such a classy, elegant and balanced wine that gets better and better by the minute. Overall a very strong wine, easily worth 96 pts, consistent with a bottle last year at a 2011 retrospective tasting (rated 97 pts), which Le Pin won.
  
  Decanting: Good from the go but improved with time in the glass. A short decant should do the job.

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  5/11/2022 - Collector1855 wrote: 95 Points

  Petrus vs. Le Pin vs. Lafleur 2004-2011, blind (Fribourg): Discrete nose of dark cherry, some herbs, smoke and toast. Light and elegant on the palate, may be a bit thin but so easy drinkable. Polished tannins, good finish.

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  5/9/2022 - sirpat00 Likes this wine: 97 Points

  Pétrus vs Lafleur vs Le Pin (Fribourg): 6 vintage face-off (2006-2011) Pétrus vs Lafleur vs Le Pin vs alternating Pomerol pirate. The wines were served in vintage flights of 4 and not decanted. Main observations were: 1/ Le Pin knocked it out of the park coming in first in 4 out of 6 vintages while Pétrus came in last with not a single vintage win (Lafleur came in best in two off-vintages, 2006 and 2008), 2/ The best overall vintage was 2009 (runner-up 2010) while 2006 came in last (scoring range 85-92), 3/ best bottle was Le Pin 2009 (99), followed by Pétrus 2010 and Le Pin 2010 (98 each), 4/ best pirate was Clos L’Eglise 2009 (97). List of wines per score included in the tasting story.
  
  Tasting note:
  Dense with a leathery touch and earthy base notes. Concentrated dark and red cherry fruit with waves of tobacco, coffee notes and cigar box. Vibrant acidity with soft yet noticeable tannin. This was an absolute stunner in a mid-tier vintage and without a doubt put its peers to shame.

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