Bordeaux 2021 at Two Years: Pomerol
I swung the wheel of the hire car (sadly, a vehicle both nameless and mute – I’m sure you miss Twingo as much as I do) to the right, turning onto the short stretch of tarmac that runs down to Le Pin. A few seconds later I drew to a stop in the small parking area next to the equally diminutive cellars. Just a couple of other cars were parked here, and alongside one stood Guillaume Thienpont, patiently awaiting my arrival.
One brief greeting later – we didn’t have too much to catch up on, given that I had been tasting with him and his father Alexandre at Vieux Château Certan only a few days earlier – we made our way towards the door. Together we went inside, and headed up to the first floor.
On every visit to Le Pin I seem to taste in a different location, remarkable considering the small footprint of the building that replaced the tumbledown house that once stood here, and perhaps this feeling says more about the fallibility of my memory than about Le Pin. But I am sure I once tasted in the vat room, as well as in the subterranean barrel cellar, and I have vague memories of other secret rooms too. So it was a surprise when I opened the door at the top of the stairs to enter yet another room never before visited. My eyes quickly surveyed the multifunctional office, library, laboratory and tasting room (I half expected to see a fold-away bed in the corner as well) before they landed on Jacques Thienpont, who was in the middle of a meeting with an unknown individual. Probably a hugely influential French wine critic.
Immediately thinking I had barged through the wrong door, I hastily made my apologies, and tried backing up, but with Guillaume directly behind me, blocking the door, it wasn’t really an option. And as he explained, I didn’t need to; despite my fears I was in the right room, and waiting there for me was a bottle of 2021 Le Pin. Or, to be more precise, a half bottle.
The mysterious unidentified visitor was soon ejected (this sounds a little like he was thrown from the first floor window so I should stress he left via the door I had just come through) and suddenly it was my turn. It was time for Le Pin.
And now it is time for my 2021 Pomerol report.
