2001 Château Branon

Community Tasting Notes (6) Avg Score: 91.4 points

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  6/9/2021 - Keith Levenberg Likes this wine: 96 Points

  Just awesome. A ridiculously good pure syrup of Pessac. You can whiff all the classic aromas of campfire smoke and hot asphalt from across the room and it's packed with more of the same on a palate drenched with saucy blackberry and black currant. It's as slick and glossy as a newly waxed (jet black) sports car yet all that gloss and cranked-up fruit density is built on a figure that's almost slender and, dare I say, elegant. I don't know what kind of monster this was on release and have definitely had others from the chateau that are fairly extreme, cranked-up-to-11 wines, but at this point there's no doubting it pulls off its power amplifying rather than distorting all the goodness of the terroir and ages into a classy package. I can't help comparing it to a recent 2000 SHL, both awesome wines, but the SHL was still more brutish and muscled while this was as powerful and expressive with a fine polish I don't think SHL can pull off.

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  8/24/2020 - Jeff Leve wrote: 90 Points

  Probably fully mature, the wine is soft, round and lush on the entry. You still find some oaky notes interspersed with the ripe, dark red fruits, smoke, cocoa and thyme on the nose and palate.

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  6/21/2017 - Wine_Bear Likes this wine: 92 Points

  Wine was properly stored from purchase upon release until consumed.
  Excellent effort from the talented Helene Garcin-Leveque.
  Beautiful bouquet right away, a veritable fruit basket. Red berries and cherries predominate.
  After a bit, able to differentiate strawberries and raspberries among the cherries.
  Balanced, tannin resolved but still there. Beautiful for current drinking, but the tannin should allow it to last a long time. If you must wait.

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  4/3/2016 - Vinum Deorum wrote: 93 Points

  A delicious wine. Very modern (creamy, oaky, concentrated) but very well balanced. It is full bodied, long and rich on the palate, with refined tanins and a very nice acidity. Despite being quite powerful, it surprisingly does not lack freshness. A really nice surprise. It is drinking beautifully at 14 years-old (after a 1h30 hour decantation) and should hold well for another 10/15years. Probably one of top 5 Pessac-Léognan in this vintage.

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  1/22/2013 - NineteenEightyTwo Likes this wine: 89 Points

  Hélène Garcin-Lévêque Dinner (Boarding House, Chicago): Tasted with a variety of wines from the estates of Helene Garcin-Leveque. This was poured alongside the 2001 Barde-Haut and 2001 Clos l'Eglise. Inky black color, with the nose and palate limited to ripe red grape. The tannins are super tart, boding well for continued aging. Compared to its more forward siblings this is still very much in its shell. Cannot give this a really fair evaluation at the moment, but the architecture of the wine is such that it will bear revisiting in 5-15 years, and likely long after that. The score is stingy but will inevitably improve with the maturation of the wine.

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View all 6 Community Tasting Notes

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