Robert Parker's Wine Advocate 29/06/2010 This is a slight downgrade for this wine, but I suspect it will bounce back, as it clearly needs more time. It was more reserved than I thought it would be, as Le Pin tends to be one of the more extravagantly rich, flamboyant wines of Pomerol. The one time I tasted the 2000, it had a dense ruby/purple color, aggressive new oak, loads of coconut, vanilla, and spice box, enormous concentration and thickness, but this is an estate where I thought their subsequent year, 2001, was an even better wine. This wine displays some firm tannins in the finish and should be forgotten for another 5-6 years. So much for Le Pin not aging well. This one has at least 25 years left in it.

Only one-third of the harvest made it into the 1996 Le Pin, so this vintage will be even more impossible to find than usual. The wine exhibits an even denser, more saturated ruby/purple color than the 1995, as well as an exotic, unformed but flamboyant vanillin, pain grille, smoke, and jammy black cherry-scented nose. Ripe, dense, and atypically fleshy for a 1996 Pomerol, this is a sexy, medium-bodied, concentrated wine that should firm up before bottling and age nicely. Anticipated maturity: 2000-2015.

Moderate ruby colour. Beautiful perfumed nose. Jammy cherry fruits - great depth and complexity. Feminine and elegant. Velvety tannins but at the moment it lacks joie de vivre. Needs time as this is just beginning to close down. Tasted July 1999.