Château Brane Cantenac, 2ème Cru Classé, Margaux, 2025
We completed our tastings at Henri Lurton's Chateau Brane Cantenac. And what a way to wrap up the 2025s. This is simply magnificent: complete, harmonious and full of grace. The nose draws you in with captivating aromas of violet-scented griotte and cacao nibs, pencil shavings, sweet briar and sandalwood. The palate is awash with glorious dark cherry and plum mixed with Christmas spices and dried flowers. Bright, unctuous and enveloping, this is alive with vibrant damsons and subtle minerals surrounded by a detailed tannic architecture. Whilst this is already a joy to taste, we feel there's a lot of underlying substance, which will reward decades in the cellar. Finishes with hints of oyster shell and lick of salinity. A firm buy recommendation!
critic reviews
The 2025 Brane-Cantenac was picked from September 2 to 29, finishing with that 1% of late-ripening Carménère, cropped at 32.2 hl/ha. It has impressive purity on the nose, an aspect of the Grand Vin that Henri Lurton and his team have improved immensely over the last decade. Black cherries, bilberry, violet and crushed stone unfold in the glass, classical in style, which is Brane-Cantenac's signature. The palate is medium-bodied with supple, finely sculpted tannins allied with disarming sapidity and brightness. Not powerful like the 2022, yet pixelated with a mineral, tensile, complex finish. Another feather in the cap for Lurton and, moreover, this is often one of the best values on release.
This is luscious and full of wonderfully bright fruits, great concentration, cushion of air underneath, high Cabernet and it comes through in the floral aromatics, clearly a plentiful tannic structure but luscious and layered damson and black cherry. Yes yes yes. 12.10% press wine. 3.62 pH. Tasted twice. 100 years of the Lurtons at Brane.
A blend of 80% Cabernet Sauvignon, 18% Merlot, 1% Cabernet Franc and 1% Carmenère (the latter harvested by the winery team after everything else has been picked), the 2025 Brane-Cantenac offers up a rich bouquet of crème de cassis, plums and spices, framed by a deft touch of new oak. Medium- to full-bodied, layered and lively, with powdery tannins that contribute youthful grip on the finish, it checks in at a very classical 13.3% alcohol and pH of 3.62.