Chateau Branaire Ducru, Le Haut Medoc de Branaire Ducru 2018

Each plot is then harvested by hand, and then goes on the sorting belt to keep only the healthy and perfect grains. Since 1991, a pioneer of the genre, Château Branaire-Ducru has been equipped with a modern gravity vat, thus eliminating the pumping of the grapes, and allowing vinification by plot thanks to its 28 vats (10 vats were added in 2010).Today, François-Xavier Maroteaux continues this line with an ambitious new project: the construction of a 100% gravity-driven vat room with 75 suspended tanks from January 2021. The vats of different sizes welcome each plot, grape variety by grape variety, and bring it, at its convenience, to the end of its expression. This essential maceration can last up to three weeks. It is in the cellar that the wine is raised to its purest expression. The metamorphosis of grape juice into wine takes place slowly: it is refined, clarified, purified. The wine is aged in oak barrels where it matures for at least eighteen months. The barrels, made from wood selected from the best French forests, are 60% renewed each year. The harvest is entirely bottled at the château.

Sensing the untapped potential of this sleeping beauty, Patrick Maroteaux and his family acquired Château Branaire-Ducru in 1988. They thus decided to write a new page in the history of this fourth grand cru classé in 1855. Then began transformations and large-scale work on all the elements that condition the creation of a great wine: the vine, the vat room, the cellars, but also the residence, the primary face of a château. Patrick Maroteaux is also an ambassador for Bordeaux and Branaire-Ducru, at the head of the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux from 2000 to 2008, and president of the AOC Saint-Julien from 2004 to 2017. In the heart of the Médoc, between Margaux and Pauillac, Château Branaire-Ducru is located in the Saint-Julien appellation, surrounded by the other Grands Crus Classés of this exceptional terroir.

The vines are planted on gravel soil, made up of gravel and pebbles carried by the Garonne in the Quaternary period. On rounded hills, the “croups”, they dominate the Girondin estuary, the “river” as it is called in the Bordeaux region. Located on an exceptional terroir, respect for it has always dictated decisions. Aware of the impacts of production on the environment, the chateau is committed to the EMS (Environmental Management System) of Bordeaux Wine, based on the international standard ISO 14001 (certified since 2020) and in a High Environmental Value approach (level 3 since 2017).