2013-CHÂTEAU-BRANE-CANTENAC-2ème-Cru-Classé-Margaux

CHÂTEAU BRANE-CANTENAC

2014 2ème Cru Classé Margaux

Colour Red
Origin France, Bordeaux
Sub-district Haut Médoc
Village Margaux
Classification 2ème Cru Classé
ABV 14%

77% Cabernet Sauvignon, 21% Merlot, 2% Cabernet Franc. This is impressive, spicy, quite dark, rich fruit and brooding power. Easy to see how this will be great drinking. Proper, classically shaped claret that in its firmish style is already attractive and just flows so well. This will no doubt be fabulous drinking in 10 to 15 years time. Drinking range: 2024 - 2040 Rating: 92 L&S (Apr 2015)


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The 2014 Brane-Cantenac is similar to the bottle poured blind at the Southwold tasting just a few weeks earlier. It has a crisp red currant and cranberry bouquet laced with tobacco, cedar and chalk. The palate is well defined and beautifully balanced, delivering crisp acidity and fine tannin. This is unashamedly taut and linear, but it displays commendable energy on the mineral-driven finish. Great potential here, although I would advise giving it a few years in bottle. Tasted at the Brane-Cantenac vertical at the property. Drinking range: 2025 - 2050 Rating: 92 Neal Martin, www.vinous.com (Jan 2019)

The 2014 Brane-Cantenac offers a mixture of red and black fruit on the nose, traces of cedar and tobacco, even a mote of chalk dust. It is understated but very complex. The palate is medium-bodied with fine grain tannin, smooth and silky in texture, the acidity well judged but just a touch of greenness shows on the finish, as it often does with this château. Just give it the prerequisite bottle age of ten years or so and you will have a very fine Margaux. Tasted blind at the annual Southwold tasting. Drinking range: 2024 - 2045 Rating: 92 Neal Martin, www.vinous.com (Mar 2018)

Rich, dense, pretty exciting with lots of nerviness. Complex. Deep flavoured. Drinking range: 2021 - 2040 Rating: 17 Jancis Robinson OBE MW - www.JancisRobinson.com (Feb 2018)

Château Brane-Cantenac

Margaux Deuxième cru 1855 The estate was originally called Château Gorce after the family that owned it in he 18th Century, but the story really begins with its purchase by Baron Hector de Brane in 1833. Baron Hector was a well-known figure in the area, earning himself the nickname "Napoléon of the the Vines" and so keen was he to own Château Gorce that he sold Château Brane-Mouton in Pauillac to finance the purchase. Quite how much wisdom there was in ridding himself of the what was to become Château Mouton-Rothschild in order to secure the ownership of a slightly under-performing Second Growth property is debatable, but at the time the wines of the estate were consistently highly(ish) ranked. From the late 19th Century onward Brane-Cantenac followed a familiar Bordelais downward spiral. In 1920, it was purchased by the Societé des Grand Crus de France, owners of (among others) Château Margaux. In 1925, ownership passed to Léonce Récapet and his son-in-law François Lurton, but the real rennaissance of Brane-Cantenac came in 1956 when François' son - the great Lucien Lurton - took over. Today, his son Henri Lurton continues to run Château Brane-Cantenac. The period of Lurton ownership has been good to Brane-Cantenac, and the wines are consistent good performers although not really ranking alongside the best Second Growths of the Haut-Médoc, but this probably says more about the relevance of the 1855 classification than it does about the terroir and wines of Château Brane-Cantenac. Brane-Cantenac sits south-west of the village of Cantenac, next to Cantenac-Brown. There are 75ha of vineyard given over to 55% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Merlot, 4.5% Cabernet Franc and a very unusual 0.5% Carmenere. The Grand Vin spends 18 months in wood, of which 50% is new every year. The second wine is called Baron de Brane in honour of Baron Hector who put the estate on the map in the early 19th Century.

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