April 21, 2024 - Seems to be sleeping
March 21, 2024 - Consistent with previous notes. Needs air but a joy to drink once it opens. This one has a long life ahead of it and will continue to improve. 96+
March 5, 2024 - Suckling Wines of the World: Still highly structured, silky tannins with the best to come but this is going to be a great wine with more time in the bottle. An excellent effort.
December 28, 2023 - Lovely well-balanced Margaux.
Dark ink color.
Luscious red fruits on the palate, soft integrated tannins.
Long finish.
November 25, 2023 - Tasted this at the International Congress of Chinese Cuisine & Wine, Chateau Brane-Cantenac Masterclass at The Tower Club.
Very rounded, very smooth. A rich wine, but slightly closed.
November 19, 2023 - 20 Vintages of Brane Cantenac: My limited experience with Brane has been mostly positive, and this tasting confirmed my initial thoughts: these days, Brane is A) usually quite accessible and charming, even young; B) the quality has steadily improved over the years, the wines are becoming more complex, precise and balanced; while vintages pre 2015 often seemed a bit simple, more recent vintages show better, C) the aromatics in recent vintages remind me of Ch. Margaux, with beautiful ripe red fruit core, as well as floral and coffee components; and D) the quality/price ratio is exceptionally good (not considered for the ratings). E) The best wine was the ethereal 2020 (96 points), followed by a superbly fresh 2010 (95 points). Although the quality is exceptional these days, the Chateau didn't fully nail every vintage, the 2019 (93pts) and, more surprisingly, the 2016 (93pts) were strong but a tad too ripe and sweet.
TN: This was a bit perplexing. On one hand the intensity, the broad array of fruit and aromas, the precision and the excellent tannin structure speak of the amazing 2016 vintage. On the other hand, the fruit, especially on the nose, showed much riper than what I would expect from a good wine in this vintage. Some parts were almost candy like. Luckily, there was a lot of fresher, not too ripe blue and red fruit on the palate too, as well as a lot of minerality to match the ripe fruit. All in all, this is a great wine that should provide a lot of drinking pleasure with a few more years of cellaring.
Decanting: Not decanted. I would decant it for 2+ hours.
September 10, 2023 - Vertical of 20 vintages - Chateau Brane-Cantenac: It was a pleasure to taste 20 vintages of Brane-Cantenac. All wines were tasted blind and with little time (10min per flight of 4 wines). Coming from the Margaux appellation, the wine convinced 1) with its accessibility of all vintages, 2) often very feminine and fresh vinification and 3) especially the consistency of quality to be emphasized. So it was not surprising that all 20 bottles (for the first time in this tasting with 12 people) were empty. At the same time, it could also be noted that the very great complexity for ratings above 94 points is often somewhat lacking. Very exciting to observe were the significant change in fruit. Until the 2009 vintage, this was often primarily red-fruited, light and very strongly Cabernet influenced. From the 2009 vintage on, a clear shift to more extraction and sweetness of the fruit is noticeable. The last, often great vintages from 2015 to 2020 are ripe but still with a good freshness/aciadity (except for 2015 according to my impression).
Tasting Note:
- This vintage shows a clear presence of wood, accompanied by aromas of blue fruits. The fruitiness seems sugary and very ripe.
- It is impressive how ripe this wine is without being overripe. It almost has something of candy floss. On the palate, however, the high quality of the tannins (much better than in the 90s) and the good acidity stand out. The fruitiness, however, seems a bit too sweet to me but the present acidity is holding against to have an overall nice experience of the wine.
July 1, 2023 - Was disappointed with this; the fruit seemed a bit affected, despite a decant.
May 14, 2023 - Bordeaux 2022 en Primeur and some recent vintages: A chateau that currently has a lot of momentum. Buy this before it becomes too expensive. Jean-Marc Quarin was the first to draw attention to it in 2015. Wonderful aromas and polished tannins. Like the 2022, a super wine and under 100 bucks.
April 13, 2023 - BYOB Vinklubben Vinminnen 15: Vinminnen 15