Château Branaire-Ducru has belonged to a French family group since 1988. In these past decades, the property has been fully renovated and the tireless pursuit of excellence has led amongst other achievements to the introduction of a second wine (Duluc de Branaire-Ducru), made mainly with fruit from the youngest wines. All this bears witness to the spectacular return of Château Branaire-Ducru as one of the elite Bordeaux wines. The whole team is extremely motivated and strives every day to contribute to this fine success by producing top-quality wines.

The wine

• Grape varieties: Cabernet-Sauvignon 70%, Merlot 22%, Cabernet Franc 5%, Petit-Verdot 3%
• The average age of the vines: 35 years
• Aging in oak barrels for 16 to 20 months with 60 to 65% of new oak. Woods were selected in various French forests according to their flavors and tannins quality.
• Light toasting respecting the wine's fruit and aromatic purity.
• All the steps in the winemaking process and aging are aimed at expressing the grapes' potential and thus our terroir in a wine where fruit and aromatic complexity go together with richness and balance, without any over-extraction and heaviness.
• Average production: 350.000 bottles per year.
• Château Branaire-Ducru can be drunk between 5 to 10 years after the harvest and it can be kept 15 to 20 years, or more, according to the richness and the power of the vintage.

Duluc de Branaire-Ducru

• Grape vines under 15 years old.
• Ready to drink 3 to 5 years after the harvest. It can also be stored longer depending on the richness of the vintage.

Branaire-Ducru and Duluc de Branaire-Ducru wines are characteristically complex and have long aging potential. They are aged traditionally in barrels made from French oak.

Over and above this, they are made in such a way as to bring out the purity of their fruit, lots of freshness and as much elegance as possible.

The winery

• First modern winery using the gravity flow system since 1991, thus eliminating the use of pumps with the harvested fruit and the wine.
• There is a wide range of stainless steel tanks of different sizes with temperature control, which makes it possible to carry out a very fine selection based on the varying characteristics of the different vineyard plots.

The terroir

• Soil: Deep quaternary gravels with clay in the subsoil
• Château Branaire-Ducru covers some sixty hectares (150 acres) that are located in the commune of Saint-Julien.

The vineyard

• Works: traditional ploughings or grass between the rows, depending on soils and vines' behavior.
• Trellising and canopy management according to vineyard density and soil composition.
• New vineyards are planted with vines selected from our own old vineyards and produced in our own nursery.
• The entire vineyard is harvested by hand.
• Harvest date based for each plot on phenolic analysis and berry tastings.

All work performed at the vineyard aims at producing perfectly ripe fruit giving a perfect image of Branaire-Ducru's terroirs. Cabernet Sauvignon is predominant in our vineyard. It gives complexity, style and power to our wines while preserving fruit and freshness - even in hot vintages.