Château Brane Cantenac, 2ème Cru Classé, Margaux, 2019
74% Merlot, 22% Cabernet Sauvignon, 2% Cabernet Franc, 1% Petit Verdot and 1% Carmenere with 11.3% press wine and weighing in at 12.7% alcohol. This hails exclusively from the plateau they call terrace IV, where Henri Lurton and his team have grafted Cabernet Sauvignon plants onto old Merlot rootstock. The additional Cabernet adds an aromatic complexity and freshness. They were very careful with extractions and appear to have produced a really harmonious and successful 2021. Wonderful florality, cool cherries and blood orange. Great definition to the fruit, pure, juicy, bittersweet fruit – the mid-palate is packed with sleek, refined berries supported by beams of acidity. This is a splendid Brane Cantenac sustained by supple, fine tannins. Exquisite.
critic reviews
The 2019 Brane-Cantenac marked the introduction of the R'Pulse system to enhance extraction and obviate the use of pumping-over. By then, the wine was mostly sourced from 30 hectares at the heart of the estate on Terrace IV gravels, with 100% new oak used during élevage. Vivacious blackberry, blueberry and hints of shucked oyster shells make for a far superior nose to the 2018 with more delineation, freshness and mineralité. The palate is medium-bodied with a notably sapid entry, verging on briny in style with plenty of black olives (perhaps due to the focus on the gravelly terroir?). Cohesive with impressive grip on the finish, this is a long-term prospect that will flourish with bottle age. Superb. Tasted at the Brane-Cantenac vertical at the château in September 2025.
High spice notes, cumin, sandalwood, cedar, white pepper. confident, slow unroll, cassis and blackberry, brambled hedgerow, espresso and cocoa bean. Field-grafting increased Cabernet Sauvignon to over 70% on the plateau at this point, with the 1st wine entirely sourced from the 30ha of Terrace 4. Harvest September 18 to October 9, 50.3hl/h yield, 100% new French oak for the first time. Eric Boissenot consultant, Henri Lurton owner, Christophe Capdeville technical director.
The 2019 Brane-Cantenac has a deep garnet-purple color. It is a tad closed to start, offering subtle notes of dried herbs, warm plums, and tobacco leaf, with wafts of aniseed, fresh blackcurrants, and black olives. The full-bodied palate is firm and grainy, with lively acidity supporting the muscular fruit and a savory finish.
Derived exclusively from the chateau's holdings on the deep gravel soils of the plateau of Brane, the 2019 Brane-Cantenac has turned out brilliantly and merits a special effort to seek out. Wafting from the glass with aromas of wild berries, pencil shavings, violets, sweet loamy soil and cardamon, it's medium to full-bodied, layered and concentrated, with lively acids, ripe tannins and a beautifully seamless, perfumed profile. Retaining all the estate's signature elegance but with an extra dimension of depth and intensity, it's the finest Brane-Cantenac of the modern era and one of the great successes of the 2019 vintage.