Château Cantenac Brown, Grand Cru Classé, Margaux 2012
Wine Spectator 91-94 (2025); Wine Enthusiast 93 (2025)
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Why this wine
A classified-growth Margaux with fourteen years behind it, which is the point at which claret stops being a project and starts being a drink. 2012 was a grower's vintage, so this is finesse rather than muscle, carrying the roasted fruit and liquorice that only come with time. Cellar-aged cru classé, ready to pour.
At a glance
- Grape
- Cabernet Sauvignon 65%, Merlot 35%
- Region
- Bordeaux, France
- Alcohol
- 13.50%
- Body
- Medium
- Acidity
- Medium
- Tannins
- Medium
- Sweetness
- Dry
- Drink
- Long (10-20 yrs)
- Pairs with
- Red Meat, Poultry & Pork, Cheese
How it tastes
A complex, roasted bouquet of red fruit, blackcurrant and blackberry with liquorice running through it. Medium-bodied and silky, tight without excess, juicy and voluptuous across a textured palate. Cabernet Sauvignon 65%, Merlot 35%.
The producer
Château Cantenac Brown is one of the Médoc's odder buildings — a Tudor-style château put up by John-Lewis Brown in the early 19th century as a nod to his Scottish origins. Its seventy-five hectares are spread across the Margaux and Cantenac plateaus on gravel shot through with clay and sand, ringed by a biodiversity reserve of rare trees left over from the founder's interest in nature. Owner Tristan Le Lous and technical director José Sanfins began building a raw-earth cellar in 2020, using the earth's thermal inertia and humidity to age the wine. Double Guyot vines are pruned, de-budded, thinned and yield-controlled by hand, with only moderate plant-based fertiliser. Hand-harvested fruit was sorted and destemmed, fermented in steel at 26–27°C, put through malolactic in a mix of barrel and vat, then aged fourteen months in French oak, 60% new and 40% one year old, racked every three months and fined with egg white. 2012 was a late, challenging year, wet through spring and rescued by a hot dry summer.
Food and drinking
Serve at 17–18°C. Good with roast lamb, rare beef, guinea fowl, or a wedge of Comté. Drinking at its peak now and over the next five to eight years; an hour in a decanter helps.