In the early 19th century, in the Margaux appellation, John-Lewis Brown (1769-1851) had a magnificent Château built in Cantenac with an English Renaissance influence (Tudor style) reminding him of his Scottish origins. Today, the estate stretches out over 120 acres and is among the most original ones in the Médoc.

In 2019, the french Le Lous family bought the Château Cantenac Brown. José Sanfins still leads this new project and big investments are carried out, to support a modern and audacious vision of viticulture.

Grape

47% Cabernet-sauvignon
42% Merlot

11% Cabernet Franc

Vineyard & Vinification Note

HVE3 certified (High environmental value certificate)

The vineyard: The Château’s vines are mainly located in Cantenac. In the areas known as «The Plateau», «L’Enclos» and «Benqueyre», the terroir is formed by a succession of knolls shaped by millions of years of erosion. The soils are made up of bank gravel. They are poor soils that let the water infiltrate and force the vines to root deeply in, in search of the essential minerals needed for growth.

The Terroir: In Margaux, alongside the country road and the locality of Marsac in Soussans, vines grow on more clayey limestone soils. Thanks to the diversity and quality of the soils, the estate is sure to produce a fine wine on a regular basis. This terroir, true signature of Margaux wines, is the origin of the elegance and generosity which characterise the wines of the appellation.

The Château uses growing methods fulfilling environmental requirements.

Before each plantation, a pedological study is conducted in order to optimise soil preparation, the choice of the rootstock, or grape variety. The plantation densities are between 8 500 and 10 000 vines per hectare, aimed at encouraging the best expression of the vines.

The estate carefully maintains the soils in the most environmentally friendly way with respect to the terroir (soil ploughing, composting). The vineyard is groomed with precision (desuckering, leaf stripping, shoot removal) in order to ensure an optimal maturation of the fruit.

Each year, 95 people work on the vineyard to harvest the grapes by hand, grape variety by grape variety, plot by plot, at ideal ripeness. Ripeness controls and especially berry tastings determine the date of the harvest.

Wine making: The grapes are carefully carried to the wine cellar in bins to avoid crushing them. They are sorted manually on the table and then go through the destemmer that will separate the berries from their «skeleton» (the stalk).

The berries are all scanned and sorted with an optical sorter that keeps only the best of the harvest, based on the parameters established beforehand by the technical team. This optical sorting makes it possible to remove all the impurities such as the fragments of stalk, shot berries, withered or draged grapes missed during manual sorting.

The alcoholic fermentation of the vines takes place in thermoregulated stainless steel vats. The winemaking process is broken down into the pump-over and soft extraction stages, adapted to each vat and each grape variety, depending on the vintage.

Ageing: When wines in the vat finish their malolactic fermentation, they are moved into barrels, vat by vat, plot by plot. These different batches will be tasted one by one, then blended in proportions that will provide the best alchemy: this is the birth of a wine. Once the blend is elaborated, wines will be moved back into barrels for ageing. In an optimal qualitative aim, rigorous monitoring of the different barrelmakers and regular tastings of our wines throughout the ageing process allow an adapted selection of wood origins and different toasting of the barrels.

After 12 months of ageing, the wines have evolved. After fining with fresh egg whites, final racking and blending, the wines are perfectly homogeneous and ready for bottling in nitrogen-inert bottles to preserve better the aromas.

Tasting Note

“Balance is there, this slight «block» at the end of August reduced alcohol content. However, rain in mid-September along with beautiful sunny days and cool nights, allowed us to maintain great freshness with exceptional polyphenolic richness.”

Food Pairing

Best served with all types of classic meat dishes, pork, beef, lamb, duck, game, roast chicken,. Also a perfect match with Asian dishes, tuna, mushrooms and pasta as well as cheeses.