Like Ferrière, a much anticipated visit as another favourite Margaux.
The château was lived in by Lucien Lurton until his death in March 2023 at the ripe old age of 97. Apparently it’s in need of a certain amount of renovation work now. His son, Henri, who took over in 1992 and who we did get a glimpse of talking to the building team, grew up there but does not live there now.
This is the reception building where the tasting took place.
We started with a look at the vines - these are on the most prestigious part, in front of the château - the Plateau de Brane, aka I believe Terrace 4. You can’t really make out the damage from mildew, which affected everywhere this year, but you can make out how green the grapes still were. Simply comparing to photos taken elsewhere at the same time last year, I would guess that the maturity is about two weeks behind, maybe three. The harvest will certainly be smaller - our hostess, the charming Laetitia, reckoned on a drop of at least 15% depending on the subsequent weather conditions.
A mixture of oak and steel vats are used - the amphorae you can see were trialled but they weren’t convinced by the results.
Here you can see two of the cellars - the small black amphorae are used for the white wine.
Here you can see the brand new cellar - with both types of lighting - all very impressive and about to be used.
Then we moved to the tasting room above the reception, where we tried three wines - the 2019 third wine, Margaux de Brane, the 2011 second wine, Baron de Brane, and Brane 2014.
The 2019 3rd wine was, as expected, fresh and fruity but not much more. I had never seen it before and didn’t even know it existed.
The 2011 Baron de Brane was really quite good - very fine and elegant, better than some older Branes I’ve had and at the right price I’d be tempted.
The 2014 Brane was very impressive - very crisp and well-defined fruit, like an improved 2001. Since I’m a great fan of the latter, I’m glad I’ve got some 2014 in stock.
Overall, the visit was a little underwhelming. We did see the plans for future embellishments - they intend to make a proper park and gardens with a lake, plus an observation tower to see across the vineyards and gardens (in wood and not as “original” as the Gruaud tower!) - so to really make the place more interesting for visitors. Of course, as a Brane lover, I’d rather money was spent on the vineyard and winemaking facilities, and Brane is the polar opposite of Giscours in that respect. The property is manifestly well-run by someone far more devoted to the quality of his wine than to that of his communication and PR.
It was good value - 35 euros for the two of us. Laetitia knew what she was talking about and we had a great chat. She was also kind enough to recommend that we visit Chasse Spleen - as it turned out, a great bit of advice.
If you’re a Brane fan and curious to see where it comes from, it’s worth a visit, but not with non wine geeks.