Le Pin: The Thienpont Family
The Thienpont family are Belgian in origin, and indeed Jacques Thienpont still spends much of his time in Belgium even today. The family have been working in the wine trade since 1842, when Kamiel Thienpont (1819-1896) founded a négociant business in Etikhove, a little town about 50 kilometres south-west of Bruges. The négociant business has since been handed down through the generations, coming first to Louis Thienpont (1853-1932), one of Kamiel’s five children, and then to Georges Thienpont (1883-1962), one of eleven offspring born to Louis.
Bordeaux was an obvious source of wine for the family business, but they dealt in wine from all over France, and from Spain too. Their discovery of Pomerol, the wines of which they promoted heavily, goes a long way to explaining not only why the ties between the Thienpont family and Pomerol remain so strong today, but also why Belgium became such a significant export market for this particular appellation. This association became more tangible when, in 1924, the same year that a Madame Loubie purchased the little plot that would one day be known as Le Pin, the aforementioned Georges Thienpont put down roots very close by with the purchase of Vieux Château Certan, although he also remained active in the running of the family business back in Belgium.
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