Le Pin: Wines
The fruit at Le Pin is all harvested by hand, the pickers employed working their way through the vines at both Thienpont estates, Le Pin and neighbouring Vieux Château Certan. As the vineyard is still considerably les than 3 hectares in size picking can be completed here in a very short period of time. Low yields, typically 30-35 hl/ha, only serves to compound the speed with which the harvest is brought in.
The fruit is first sorted, destemmed and then gently pressed, before being transferred to the stainless steel fermentation vats. These were once squeezed into the partly subterranean cellar, although these days there is the luxury of seven stainless steel vats located on the ground floor of the relatively spacious new chai. The fermentation is carried out by indigenous yeasts, and is controlled to a temperature of 30-32ºC. The may be a saignée of varying volume depending on the vintage, something that Jacques Thienpont has favoured since 1993.
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