Brane Cantenac unveils label celebrating 100 years of Lurton family ownership
Château Brane-Cantenac celebrated a hundred years of ownership by the Lurton family last year, with a newly unveiled commemorative label for the 2025 vintage, a vintage of “customary brilliance and remarkable depth and character”, according to db’s Bordeaux correspondent Colin Hay.
The new label was created especially for this occasion and conceived as a bridge between past and the present.
As early as the 15th Century, the estate (then known as Gorce) was already recognised as one of the Médoc’s leading vineyards but in 1838, Jacques-Maxime de Brane gave the estate its name and left a lasting imprint on its identity. Léonce Récapet acquired Brane-Cantenac in 1925, marking the beginning of a century of continuous family ownership a rare distinction among Bordeaux’s Grands Crus Classés (Léonce’s daughter Denise married François Lurton in 1923, who worked with his father-in-law and it was their second son Lucien, who inherited Brane-Cantenac in 1954 and oversaw a renaissance of the estate. Living well into his 90s, he become known as one of the great architects of the Médoc).
Since 1992, Henri Lurton has overseen the estate, passing ownership on to his children in 2022 while continuing to lead its day-to-day management.
Living heritage
The commemorative label marks the family’s centenary at Brane-Cantenac. Its central motif, a radiant sun, takes its inspiration from an overlooked detail: an embossed medallion discovered on a 19th Century bottle of Brane-Cantenac. Even then, it seems, light was already part of the estate’s visual language.
Reinterpreted today, this emblem has become the expression of a living heritage. It evokes the essential role of the sun in the birth of every vintage, the transmission of family values, and the enduring influence of the estate through time.
Structured around this luminous centre, the composition unfolds in fine, balanced rays, echoing the generations that have shaped Brane-Cantenac over the past century. Deep, textured gold catches the light with understated elegance. It brilliantly captures the identity of this much-loved and greatly admired icon of its appellation and of the Médoc.
This commemorative label will appear exclusively on the 2025 vintage, marking one hundred years of the Lurton family’s stewardship of Château Brane-Cantenac. As Madeleine Lurton puts it, “Our intention was never to redefine Brane-Cantenac’s identity, but rather to reveal what has always been there”.
The 2025 vintage
The 2025 vintage was shaped by an exceptionally demanding growing season, with one of the earliest harvests of the past decades: white grapes were picked from 20 August, followed by the reds from 2 September. A hot, dry year produced small, highly concentrated berries, resulting in naturally low yields (of around 32 hl/ha) but fruit in outstanding sanitary condition.
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In the glass, 2025 is intense and precise, with that habitual Brane freshness that shines through despite the year’s extreme conditions. Forged from unique climatic conditions, Brane 2025 is transcendent and remains true to the enduring style the property has finessed under Lurton ownership over the last century. It is a vintage of customary brilliance and remarkable depth and character.
Tasting note for the 2025 vintage
Château Brane-Cantenac 2025 (Margaux; 80% Cabernet Sauvignon; 18% Merlot; 1% Carménère; 1% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 32.2 hl/ha; pH 3.62; 13.3% alcohol; 12% press wine; tasted twice, first at the UGCB press tasting at the Cité du Vin and then with Christophe Capdeville at Brane-Cantenac). This is divine aromatically and yet also delivers an incredible density and compactness in the mid-palate that only Brane seems to be able to achieve with this much clarity, finesse, elegance and precision. There’s a gentle and very natural sweetness to the aromatics. This is a wine of a paradoxical brilliance given the contrast between its staggering freshness and the climatic conditions from which it was forged. The floral notes are delicate and subtle – lily of the valley, perhaps a little mimosa and iris. There’s a touch of incense too. Brane-Cantenac in 2025 is texturally sublime, with an amazing sensation of layering and a dynamic freshness that seems to well up from below very naturally. Quite simply, this is a triumph. 96-98.
Highlights of the last 100 years
(tasted at a commemorative vertical and dinner at the chateau in September 2025).
Château Brane-Cantenac 2001 (Margaux; 35% Cabernet Sauvignon; 55% Merlot; 11% Cabernet Franc; 35.2 hl/ha; pH 3.87; 13% alcohol). An unusual composition for Brane, with 11% Cabernet Franc and relatively little Cabernet Sauvignon. This is a fascinating wine. More open and expressive than when last tasted but very much a star as then. It is all there. Indeed, this is one of the most complex and layered wines of the entire tasting. Soft and enticing, with beautifully svelte tannins but impressive concentration (the proverbial iron fist in the velvet glove). Rose petals are much in evidence, peony and hibiscus too. There’s a floral honey note too and with it a hint of beeswax. A sprig of fresh mint. Quite an intellectual wine with an impressive density that is a little disguised at first by the velour of its tannins. With all that Cabernet Franc and 55% Merlot too, in 2001 Brane is the Pomerol of Margaux. On a par with the 2000. Gracious, elegant, seductive and beautifully svelte in its texture. 95.
Château Brane-Cantenac 2005 (Margaux; 51% Cabernet Sauvignon; 43% Merlot; 6% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 38.5 hl/ha; 13% alcohol). Another truly wonderful wine. Very classical and very Medocain with lovely graphite and cedar inflected the dark berry fruits. Very much in the style of the 2009. Sweet-tinged and exuding perfect ripeness – solaire but not excessively so. Accessible. Pure, focused and yet rich and with gloriously svelte tannins. Not quite the mid-palate concentration of the 2009, but really excellent. For once one notices the higher proportion of Merlot in the blend – Brane is so much a wine of its terroir that the encépagement (which varies greatly between vintages) often seems irrelevant. Very pretty, very floral, yet at the same time this has a rare savoury, meaty note – seared cote de boeuf! And that saline minerality one finds in so many of Brane’s best vintages. Truffly and smoky on the long finish. So utterly indulgent, just as it should be. 95.
Château Brane-Cantenac 2009 (Margaux; 53% Cabernet Sauvignon; 40% Merlot; 7% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 48.4 hl/ha; pH 3.72; 13.5% alcohol); a final yield of 48.4 hl/ha; pH 3.72; 13.5% alcohol). Almost the antithesis of 2010. Open, really flattering and enticing – already in full voice. Gloriously and intensely floral. Exotic in its way, but with that impression now reined back a little by the very classical graphite and cedar. Plump. Exuberant. Energetic. Flamboyant. Generous. And strikingly complex too. This has a lovely acidity. Lithe and limpid in the glass with those dried lavender notes of Brane. Heather. Incense. Mocha. An undoubted highlight of the tasting and of the vintage. Richly deserving of its reputation. This sings every time I taste it. 97.
Château Brane-Cantenac 2016 (Margaux; 70% Cabernet Sauvignon; 27% Merlot; 2% Cabernet Franc; 1% Carménère; a final yield of 52.5 hl/ha; pH 3.57; 13.5% alcohol). ‘Golden Brane … texture like sun’. This has changed a little in personality since I last tasted it, becoming nuttier and maybe a little more expressive and effusive; it’s also more bulby in its florality – peony bulb and blossom together and a touch of iris. Just glorious and, for me, certainly one of the wines of the tasting. When it was made, I think, this was the best ever wine I had tasted from Brane. An ethereal nose of Médocain perfection. Cool, calm, composed and utterly classy. Quite serious, even sombre and a little held back and insular with much more to come. But, on the palate, already a wondrous plunge-pool of deep, dark, rich fruit. The tannins are imperceptible, giving the impression of cool depth. Profound. Elegant. A bit Pichon-Lalande (not the first time I’ve thought that). Then lovely cedar and graphite notes kick in. Beautifully rolling, rippling fruity sappy finish. It is as if the fruit was being dripped onto the palate. So long on the red liquorice-tinged finish. 98.
Château Brane-Cantenac 2020 (Margaux; 70% Cabernet Sauvignon; 26% Merlot; 2% Cabernet Franc; 1% Carménère; 1% Petit Verdot; a final yield of 30.8 hl/ha; aging in a combination of new oak and amphorae for 18 months; pH 3.71; 13.7% alcohol). Glorious. Radiant. Brilliant. Extremely limpid, like moonlight on a silvery lake, very dark hued, accentuating the effect, but translucent at the core and seemingly very gently extracted. The nose is instantly ‘Brane’, for me always the most aromatic and the most distinctive aromatically of the great Margaux estates. It takes a little while to come together, but when it does this could not be any other wine. In this vintage it has always been more floral I think that any other left-bank wine, with rose petals, peonies and patchouli enrobing the dark berry and cherry fruit, but also with oodles of Brane graphite and cedar and a lovely fresh cracked peppercorn note too. If I could bottle the aroma, I’d carry a jar of it around with me! Soft, sleek, supple, sinuous and sensuous on the palate, with the most gloriously svelte tannins, this is a very refined and elegant wine that ripples as it rolls over the palate. Very complete, supremely harmonious and utterly compelling, this is on a par with the 2016 for me. Golden Brane! 98.
Château Brane-Cantenac 2022 (Margaux; 74% Cabernet Sauvignon; 23% Merlot; 1% Cabernet Franc; 1% Carménère; 1% Petit Verdot; a final yield of 31.5 hl/ha; pH 3.61; 14.3% alcohol). An utterly brilliant Brane Cantenac built around the old vines on the plateau. Perfectly integrated and harmonious, if slow at first to divulge its secrets. Perfectly integrated and harmonious. Slow to reveal itself both at it has always been, this unfurls gradually and at its own rhythm, with lovely cedar and graphite encrusted black cherry and berry fruit, lovely touch of walnut skins or fresh walnuts before the skins have changed colour. Candlewax and incense too, indeed this is quite toasty and first (more so perhaps than I recall and one feels the need to put this back in the cave and revisit). Given a little time, that remarkable signature of Brane eventually fills the glass but all at its own place. A little peony and pink rose petal florality, but subtle. The quality of the tannins and even the sapidity already evident on the nose. Texturally remarkable, a wine that so beautifully epitomises Brane and Margaux. So cool and gracious. A lovely tight frame accentuates the sense of concentration. A wine of incredible impact in the mouth – but this is all about fresh, fresh fruit. Crystalline and limpid and with great precision. So clear and yet with so much impact and density. Succulent, sapid and tender on the fantail finish before the taper towards a very long and distant horizon. The best yet from Henri and Christophe at Brane. The intensity of the florality in the mouth is sublime. 98+.
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