2019 Chateau Brane-Cantenac, Margaux, France 750ml

A thoroughly moreish and high-quality Brane Cantenac, this is silky and seductive with impressive extraction of the tannins giving backbone and support to brambled and cassis fruits. Plenty of crushed stone and spice to add a gourmet edge alongside the just-smoked oak. Extremely high quality and one of the best Branes I've tasted at this stage. 3% of Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc complete the blend. For the first time, all of the plots for this wine come from the plateau de Brane just in front of the château, a reflection of how well this terroir withstood the heat of the summer.

The 2019 Brane-Cantenac is wild and exotic from the very first taste. The aromatics alone are dazzling. Super-ripe dark cherry, plum, spice, tobacco, new leather, menthol and cinnamon are all kicked up in this flamboyant Margaux. The 2019 is radiant and generous, yet also retains a very classic sense of structure. The precision here is just unreal. In 2019, Brane-Cantenac is an absolute head-turner. It is the sort of wine that abounds in Bordeaux, a wine that offers tremendous quality and relative value.

Derived exclusively from the château'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.

With the 2019 vintage, Brane-Cantenac has produced its finest wine of the modern era. After grafting over Merlot vines to Cabernet Sauvignon, Henri Lurton and his team were finally able to craft a balanced blend derived solely from the plateau of Brane, the estate's finest terroir. And the result is a wine with all Brane-Cantenac's signature elegance, but supplemental mid-palate depth and texture, not to mention the remarkable textural sensuality and vivid, expressive aromas that are such a signature of this vintage. One of the true bargains of the 2019 en primeur campaign, it continues to represent incredible value for a wine of this quality. It's a blend of 70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 26% Merlot and 2% Cabernet Franc, and it was matured in entirely new barrels.