Le Pin 2016

A pine tree and a farmhouse

Le Pin is a red Bordeaux from the Pomerol appellation, on the Right Bank of the Gironde. The estate sits on the outskirts of the hamlet of Catusseau, in the middle of Pomerol's clay plateau, about a kilometer southwest of Vieux Chateau Certan. Its wine is frequently among the most expensive red wines in the world.

The property takes its name from a solitary pine tree that grew near the winery. It was owned from the 1920s by a Madame Laubie, who sold the wine in bulk to Bordeaux merchants. In 1979 the Thienpont family, Belgian wine merchants who already owned neighboring Vieux Chateau Certan, bought it. One account says Jacques Thienpont paid 1 million francs for the one-hectare vineyard; another says his father Marcel and Marcel's brother Gerard made the purchase in March 1979, with Jacques put in charge. 1979 was the first vintage to carry the Le Pin name.

In the early days the wine was made in tiny quantities in a farmhouse basement. There was so little room that malolactic fermentation took place in barrel because there was nowhere else to keep the wine, a practice that later became a trend in modern winemaking. The vineyard was enlarged in small pieces, including a 0.3-hectare plot in 1984 and a 0.7-hectare parcel of 70-year-old vines in 1985, to about 2.7 hectares today.

The Thienponts

The Thienponts were wine merchants in Belgium before they made wine in Bordeaux. Georges Thienpont bought Chateau Troplong-Mondot in Saint-Emilion in 1921 and a few years later bought Vieux Chateau Certan in Pomerol, which is now run by his grandson Alexandre Thienpont and Alexandre's son Guillaume. Georges was forced to sell Troplong-Mondot in 1935, during the Depression.

Jacques Thienpont, also a grandson of Georges, comes from a branch of the family rooted in Etikhove, Belgium. In 2010 he bought a vineyard of about five hectares in Saint-Emilion, formerly Chateau Haut-Plantey, on the road down from Troplong-Mondot, a vineyard he had played around as a child, and named its wine L'If, after a yew tree, as Le Pin is named after a pine.

In 2010 the old farmhouse was torn down, and in 2011 a new winery designed by the Belgian architects Robbrecht en Daem opened in time for the spring 2011 barrel tastings, with small stainless steel vats and gravity used to move the wine. The famous pine tree is gone too. Since January 2022, according to one account, Diana Garcia Berrouet has run Le Pin in Jacques Thienpont's place, and Guillaume Thienpont is the winemaker.

The first of the garage wines?

Le Pin is the youngest of the Right Bank's icons. It became an almost overnight success with the critical acclaim given to its fourth vintage, the 1982, and its tiny production and a growing collector market sent its price to extraordinary levels. Le Pin was not well known or especially expensive before 1985.

It is often called a forerunner of the 'garage wines,' the small-batch Bordeaux of the 1990s. Many people, including the owners, reject the label, pointing to the quality of the site and the absence of extreme measures to make up for ordinary grapes.

The soil is sandy gravel over a deep layer of clay mixed with iron ore, called crasse de fer. It is poor, because it went unfertilized for decades, so the roots dig deep and yields rarely exceed 30 hectoliters per hectare. The south-facing site is warm, which helps in cool years. Le Pin makes no wine when the fruit is not good enough: there was no 2003, because of drought and heat, and the entire 2013 crop was declassified.

2016: drought and the October harvest

2016 was less hot than 2015 but drier, and Jacques Thienpont said the grapes had to be picked relatively late because phenolic ripeness lagged behind sugar. Picking began on October 4, the first time a Le Pin harvest had begun in October; one account gives the harvest as October 4 to 8.

Because the drought hit the parcels differently, the team made ten separate lots instead of the usual six, marking the vines with paint on the posts. The yield was naturally low. Neal Martin reported 28 to 30 hectoliters per hectare and 14.5% alcohol, and Jane Anson 28 hectoliters per hectare at pH 3.72; James Suckling, tasting from barrel in March 2017, cited 18 hectoliters, a figure the other reports do not match. During the barrel tastings Thienpont warned tasters, 'Don't touch this for 15 years.'

Critics placed it among the stars of the vintage. James Suckling gave it 100 points in February 2019 and called it a 'perfect wine.' Jeb Dunnuck gave 99 and asked whether it was 'the sexiest, kinkiest, most opulent wine in the vintage,' answering yes. Jane Anson scored it 98 from barrel, Lisa Perrotti-Brown 98+ in the Wine Advocate and again in The Wine Independent, and Jancis Robinson 19 out of 20. Neal Martin wrote that he could not remember a Le Pin with such tension and detail so early.

Rarity and price

Le Pin typically makes 600 to 700 cases a year, against an average of about 30,000 bottles a year at Petrus, its neighbor in Pomerol. The low yield of 2016 means the vintage was small even by Le Pin's standards, though no source found gives an exact case count for the 2016.

At auction in Hong Kong in September 2026, a six-bottle case of the 2016 sold for HKD 187,500 against an estimate of HKD 110,000 to 160,000. In October 2026 US retailers listed single bottles at $7,750 and $6,601.50.

The numbers

Vineyard

About 2.7 ha in one block around the winery

Typical production

About 600 to 700 cases a year

2016 yield

28-30 hl/ha (Neal Martin); 28 hl/ha (Jane Anson)

2016 harvest

From October 4, 2016

James Suckling

100 (February 2019)

Jeb Dunnuck

99

Wine Advocate

98+ (Lisa Perrotti-Brown, November 2018)

Jancis Robinson

19/20 (April 2017)

Timeline

1. 1921

   Georges Thienpont buys Troplong-Mondot in Saint-Emilion; Vieux Chateau Certan follows a few years later.

2. 1924

   The Laubie family's ownership of the future Le Pin begins, per one account.

3. Mar 1979

   The Thienpont family buys the one-hectare vineyard; 1979 is the first Le Pin vintage.

4. 1982

   Le Pin's fourth vintage wins the acclaim that makes it famous.

5. 1984

   A 0.3-ha neighboring plot is added.

6. 1985

   Jacques Thienpont buys a 0.7-ha parcel of 70-year-old vines.

7. 2003

   No Le Pin is made, because of drought and heat.

8. 2010

   The farmhouse is demolished; Jacques Thienpont buys the Saint-Emilion vineyard that becomes L'If.

9. 2011

   A new gravity-fed winery by Robbrecht en Daem opens.

10. 2013

    The entire Le Pin crop is declassified.

11. Oct 4, 2016

    Picking of the 2016 begins, the first October start in Le Pin's history.

12. Apr 2017

    Barrel scores: Jane Anson 98, Neal Martin 96-98, Jancis Robinson 19/20.

13. Feb 2019

    James Suckling scores the bottled 2016 100 points.

14. Jan 2022

    Diana Garcia Berrouet takes over running Le Pin from Jacques Thienpont, per one account.

15. Sep 24, 2026

    A six-bottle case of the 2016 sells at auction in Hong Kong for HKD 187,500.

The world in 2016

• Mar 22, 2016

  Suicide bombings at Brussels airport and a metro station kill 32 people.

• Jun 23, 2016

  The United Kingdom votes in a referendum to leave the European Union.

• Jul 5, 2016

  NASA's Juno spacecraft enters orbit around Jupiter.

• Jul 14, 2016

  A truck attack during Bastille Day celebrations in Nice kills more than 80 people.

• Aug 5, 2016

  The Summer Olympics open in Rio de Janeiro, the first Games held in South America.

• Nov 2, 2016

  The Chicago Cubs win the World Series for the first time since 1908.

• Nov 8, 2016

  Donald Trump is elected president of the United States.

Price record

This is an asking price, not a sale. It is what a seller wanted on the date shown. Asking prices often sit above what buyers pay, but an ask is not a ceiling: a sale can land on either side of it. It is not a value.

By reference price, Le Pin 2016 is number 11 of 100 in the wine entries of the FLOAT 100. 12 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (8 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Le Pin is named for a single pine tree that grew by the vineyard; the tree is gone now.
• The first Le Pin vintages were made in a farmhouse basement so cramped that malolactic fermentation happened in barrel for lack of space.
• 2016 was the first year Le Pin's harvest began in October.
• Drought made the 2016 vines ripen so unevenly that the team split the crop into ten lots instead of six.
• There is no 2003 Le Pin, and the whole 2013 crop was declassified.
• Jacques Thienpont named his Saint-Emilion wine L'If, after a yew tree, to echo Le Pin's pine.
• Le Pin was little known before 1985, six years after its first vintage.