2009 Château Le Pin

Community Tasting Notes (11) Avg Score: 97 points

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  11/2/2022 - Jeff Leve wrote: 99 Points

  Sensuous, silky, opulent, velvety, and rich, the layers of exotically-textured cherries seem endless here. The floral, red pit fruit, citrus, and cocoa perfume get the party started, but it is on the palate where this wine really shines. Drink from 2022-2054.

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  5/15/2022 - Cailles wrote: 97 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: Le Pin usually shows very luxurious coffee and toasty notes on the palate mixed with ripe but not too ripe dark and red berries. In 2009 that is all a bit more intense but still not over the top. A complex and very sensual nose. On the palate a rainbow of aromas with ripe red berries, blue fruit, floral notes, minerality, herbs, toasty notes. Still ripe(r than other vintages) but not as ripe as the nose suggested and not as ripe as many other right bank wines in 2009, and even with nice blue fruit notes and floral aromas you don’t usually get in hotter vintages. Highly complex, so perfectly delinated. Very fine, velvety tannins, lots of tension, high freshness, superbly creamy. It is not as light and weightless as in other vintages but still not excessive in any way. This is a very complete wine which will still need to flesh out a bit over the next decade or two. 96/97 pts, consistent with a bottle 3 years back (rated 96 pts).
  
  Decanting: A short decant should do the job.

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  5/11/2022 - Collector1855 wrote: 99 Points

  Petrus vs. Le Pin vs. Lafleur 2004-2011, blind (Fribourg): Amazing nose here, similar style like the 2010 with bakery, dark fruit and toast. Beautiful soft palate, very sexy, polished. Awesome. 99, WOTN #2, only slightly out-shined by the 2010 Le Pin

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  5/9/2022 - sirpat00 Likes this wine: 99 Points

  Pétrus vs Lafleur vs Le Pin (Fribourg): Sexy, multi-dimensional with layer after layer, sweet accents, tobacco and cigar box, dried herbs, seasoning, espresso and roasted coffee beans all adding to a well-defined bouquet of mixed berries. Fresh palate with great acidity and an intricate structure. Tannins were still quite mouth coating and overall not yet ready and best cellared for quite a few more years. But in spite of this, the Le Pin 2009 is already flirting hard with perfection and there is definitely a 100 points potential here, only a question of time. This was the winner of the tasting, ahead of Le Pétrus 2009 and Le Pin 2010. Luckily a completely different experience than I had 3 years ago during a vintage horizontal.

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  4/16/2022 - DrZett wrote: 96 Points

  A few days ago I participated in a once in a lifetime tasting organized by Armin Diel. We tasted 12 vintages of wine icon Château Le Pin from Pomerol, all out of magnum bottles from Armin’s private cellar. All were in fantastic shape - even Monsieur Alexandre Thienpont took part in this tasting. What an extraordinary experience. Today’s market prices for magnums are between 7,000-18,000 bucks per bottle. Production figures are at the end of each vintage.
  
  2000 Most elegant and complex one, perfect balance, felt very classic. 97/100 5,678 std / 274 mg
  
  2004 Beautiful nose, nice grip on the palate, great ripe fruit. 95/100 8,800 std / 300 mg
  
  2005 Showed some soft tertiary notes, fantastic depth and structure. Incredible balance. 97/100 5,900 std / 350 mg
  
  2006 Elegant nose with soft aging notes. Beautiful balance and depth. 95/100 5,420 std / 340 mg
  
  2007 Good structure and balance. Some green tannins. 93/100 7,200 std / 360 mg
  
  2009 Super complexity, lots of fruits, but not overdone. Incredible depth. 96/100 5,882 std / 310 mg
  
  2010 Fantastic complexity. Some beautiful mineral notes and an endless finish. 97/100 5,035 std / 234 mg
  
  2011 Great depth and fine fruit structure. Alcohol felt a little too dominant. 93/100 5,450 std / 287 mg
  
  2015 Extraordinary vintage. Power, fruit, depth and elegance, it had everything! Endless finish. 98/100 5,508 std / 280 mg
  
  2016 Great fruit structure, tannins not integrated yet. Very long finish. 95/100 5,676 std / 298 mg
  
  2017 Elegant vintage, very precise structure. Tannins are still grippy, not integrated yet. Will be fantastic in the future. 95/100 4,339 std / 441 mg
  
  2018 Great fruit notes, some vanilla too. Beautiful complexity. Alcohol is a little hot. Too young, needs more time. 94/100 4,505 std / 372 mg
  
  I won’t call a winner this time, drinking these icons side by side was a fantastic experience and although some vintages were showing not as good as others, all were absolutely enjoyable.
  Thank you Armin for the beautiful evening.
  Cheers 🍷

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