2012 Château Branaire-Ducru, St Julien, Bordeaux

2012 Château Branaire-Ducru, St Julien, Bordeaux

Product: 20128003230
Prices start from £205.00 per case Buying options
2012 Château Branaire-Ducru, St Julien, Bordeaux

Buying options

Available by the case In Bond. Pricing excludes duty and VAT, which must be paid separately before delivery. Storage charges apply.
Case format
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Price per case
6 x 75cl bottle
BBX marketplace BBX 2 cases £205.00
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New To BBX
BBX marketplace BBX 1 case £215.00
New To BBX
New To BBX
BBX marketplace BBX 1 case £215.00
New To BBX
New To BBX
BBX marketplace BBX 1 case £220.00
New To BBX
New To BBX
BBX marketplace BBX 1 case £220.00
BBX marketplace BBX 1 case £222.00
BBX marketplace BBX 1 case £250.00
BBX marketplace BBX 1 case £250.00
BBX marketplace BBX 1 case £250.00
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Description

There is a perfumed nose here, with linear aromas and a real scent of pure Cabernet Sauvignon fruit. The subtleties of accompanying grapes ably fill in the gaps to make a wholly complete wine, with ripe and grippy tannins supporting the juicy fruit flavours. The wine has real depth, energy and length. It is a very good effort indeed. 68% Cabernet Sauvignon, 24% Merlot, 5% Petit Verdot and 3% Cabernet Franc.
Laura Atkinson, Private Account Manager

wine at a glance

Delivery and quality guarantee

Critics reviews

Wine Advocate90/100
Deep ruby/purple, with sweet cranberry, mulberry and raspberry/blueberry fruit, this is always a distinctive St.-Julien and the 2012 has managed to avoid any of the hollowness or harsh tannins that can afflict some of the Mdocs. It is elegant, well-made and an outstanding effort in this vintage. Drink it over the next 15 or more years.
Robert M. Parker, Jr. - 30/04/2015 Read more
Jancis Robinson MW17/20
Dark crimson. Sweet, fragrant, rather floral nose. Opulent. Not at all typical of the vintage! Round and flattering. Some real energy here but not that true to type, though there are some nice dry appetising tannins on the finish.
Jancis Robinson MW, jancisrobinson.com, 23 Apr 2013 Read more
Wine Spectator90-93/100
Light, racy and pure, with red currant and cherry pit notes driving a solid hint of rooibos tea on the finish. The finely beaded acidity keeps this going. Not big, but persistent and showing considerable finesse.
James Molesworth, Wine Spectator, April 8 2013 Read more
Decanter17/20
Bright Cabernet fruit, a polished smoothness to match the slight greeeness, needs time and will show elegance and class. Read more

About this WINE

Château Branaire-Ducru

Château Branaire-Ducru

Classified as a fourth growth in 1855, Ch. Branaire-Ducru makes pure and classic St Julien. The estate has recently passed from father to son: the widely respected Patrick Maroteaux – who had served at various times as president of the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux and the St Julien appellation – sadly passed away in 2017. His son François-Xavier has picked up the baton and continues his father’s legacy. The Maroteaux family bought the property in 1988 and have invested considerably in the vineyard and winery since. Superstar consultant Eric Boissenot advises here, as he does with many of the Left Bank’s top estates, including the Médoc’s four first growths.

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France

France

Despite their own complacency, occasional arrogance and impressive challenges from all-comers, France is still far and away the finest wine-producing nation in the world and its famous regions – Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, Loire, Rhône, Alsace and increasingly Languedoc Roussillon – read like a who’s who of all you could want from a wine. Full-bodied, light-bodied, still or fizzy, dry or sweet, simple or intellectual, weird and wonderful, for drinking now or for laying down, France’s infinitesimal variety of wines is one of its great attributes. And that’s without even mentioning Cognac and Armagnac.

France’s grape varieties are grown, and its wines emulated, throughout the world. It also brandishes with relish its trump card, the untranslatable terroir that shapes a wine’s character beyond the range of human knowledge and intervention. It is this terroir - a combination of soil and microclimate - that makes Vosne-Romanée taste different to Nuits-St Georges, Ch. Langoa Barton different to Ch. Léoville Barton.

France is a nation with over 2,000 years of winemaking, where the finest grapes and parcels of land have been selected through centuries of trial and error rather than market research. Its subtleties are never-ending and endlessly fascinating. Vintage variation is as great here as anywhere – rain, hail, frost and, occasionally, burning heat can ruin a vintage. Yet all this creates interest, giving the wines personality, and generating great excitement when everything does come together.

However, this is not to say that French wine is perfect. Its overall quality remains inconsistent and its intricate system of classification and Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC) based on geography as opposed to quality is clearly flawed, sometimes serving as a hindrance to experimentation and improvement.

Nevertheless, the future is bright for France: quality is better than ever before – driven by a young, well-travelled and ambitious generation of winemakers – while each year reveals new and exciting wines from this grand old dame.

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Cabernet Sauvignon blend

Cabernet Sauvignon blend

Cabernet Sauvignon lends itself particularly well in blends with Merlot. This is actually the archetypal Bordeaux blend, though in different proportions in the sub-regions and sometimes topped up with Cabernet Franc, Malbec, and Petit Verdot.

In the Médoc and Graves the percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon in the blend can range from 95% (Mouton-Rothschild) to as low as 40%. It is particularly suited to the dry, warm, free- draining, gravel-rich soils and is responsible for the redolent cassis characteristics as well as the depth of colour, tannic structure and pronounced acidity of Médoc wines. However 100% Cabernet Sauvignon wines can be slightly hollow-tasting in the middle palate and Merlot with its generous, fleshy fruit flavours acts as a perfect foil by filling in this cavity.

In St-Emilion and Pomerol, the blends are Merlot dominated as Cabernet Sauvignon can struggle to ripen there - when it is included, it adds structure and body to the wine. Sassicaia is the most famous Bordeaux blend in Italy and has spawned many imitations, whereby the blend is now firmly established in the New World and particularly in California and  Australia.

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When is a wine ready to drink?

We provide drinking windows for all our wines. Alongside the drinking windows there is a bottle icon and a maturity stage. Bear in mind that the best time to drink a wine does also depend on your taste.

Not ready

These wines are very young. Whilst they're likely to have lots of intense flavours, their acidity or tannins may make them feel austere. Although it isn't "wrong" to drink these wines now, you are likely to miss out on a lot of complexity by not waiting for them to mature.

Ready - youthful

These wines are likely to have plenty of fruit flavours still and, for red wines, the tannins may well be quite noticeable. For those who prefer younger, fruitier wines, or if serving alongside a robust meal, these will be very enjoyable. If you choose to hold onto these wines, the fruit flavours will evolve into more savoury complexity.

Ready - at best

These wines are likely to have a beautiful balance of fruit, spice and savoury flavours. The acidity and tannins will have softened somewhat, and the wines will show plenty of complexity. For many, this is seen as the ideal time to drink and enjoy these wines. If you choose to hold onto these wines, they will become more savoury but not necessarily more complex.

Ready - mature

These wines are likely to have plenty of complexity, but the fruit flavours will have been almost completely replaced by savoury and spice notes. These wines may have a beautiful texture at this stage of maturity. There is lots to enjoy when drinking wines at this stage. Most of these wines will hold in this window for a few years, though at the very end of this drinking window, wines start to lose complexity and decline.