Dreamlike deep nose with blackberries, graphite and some smoky notes. Opens with licorice, vanilla and red fruit. Full and intensely fruity on the palate with lots of dark berries. Complex, dense and deeply structured with polished tannins and a great finish that just goes on and on. The balance is amazing. Even better than 2009. Drink from 2018.James Suckling | 100 JSMade from 100% Merlot (one percent for each rating point I’ve assigned), this wine is explosively rich and compelling. Dense plum/purple, it boasts the remarkable delineation and freshness that are hallmarks of this vintage. From a much smaller production than normal because of Merlot’s poor flowering, the very hot, dry growing and harvest conditions, this is a super-endowed, very rich Le Pin with its exotic new oak largely buried behind its extravagant concentration, power and richness. I don’t know what its natural alcohol level is, but I suspect it is pushing 15% in 2010. Rich, tannic, but exceptionally well-endowed, this is a sublime example of Merlot at its very finest. Forget it for 5-7 years (which is somewhat unusual for Le Pin) and drink it over the following three decades.Robert Parker | 100 RPA sleeping giant, with an immense core of pure raspberry and kirsch fruit surrounded by a gorgeous graphite frame. As large-scaled as it is, this remains remarkably lithe, with a black tea and allspice perfume gilding the finish. Caressing and almost approachable now, but there’s so much density and definition here that it will be fun to watch this age over the next generation. Basically the ’90, just dialed up to 11.--Non-blind Le Pin vertical (December 2015). Best from 2020 through 2040. 458 cases made.Wine Spectator | 99 WSLaden with pleasure, this showcases an exuberant side of 2010, where the seductive, languorous beauty of Le Pin fully proves its worth. The emphasis is on powerful spices, chocolate pod and coffee bean, zaatar and anis. Powerfully concentrated and still fairly closed, you can approach now but it will need longer to fully open up, and as is so often the case with Le Pin, there are various things happening at once, with the silky exuberance a pleasurable misdirection away from the serious levels of tannin and power. Drinking Window 2025 - 2050.Decanter | 98 DECThe 2010 Le Pin is blessed with a supremely well defined and focused bouquet: red berry fruit, hints of star anis, black truffle and smoke that soar from the glass. The palate is very well balanced with fine grain tannins, a perfect line of acidity, very elegant in style with a precise, almost understated finish in context of the growing season. Outstanding. Tasted blind at Farr Vintners 10-Year On Bordeaux horizontal.Vinous Media | 96 VM(Château Le Pin) Le Pin is a bit lower in alcohol in 2010 than many of the other top estates in Pomerol, as this vintage produced a wine at 14.2 percent. But this is in contrast to the 2009 Le Pin, which weighed in at 13.5 percent, so we are still talking a fairly significant step up in ripeness for the 2010 here. The nose is deep, ripe and very well-balanced, as it offers up scents of black cherries, dark plums, chocolate, a touch of balsam bough, lovely soil tones and plenty of stylish new oak. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and really well-balanced for its 14.2 percent octane, with fine mid-palate depth, ripe tannins, good acids and fine length and grip on the nascently complex finish. A very fine example of the vintage. (Drink between 2019-2045).John Gilman | 94+ JG
