Château Cantenac Brown

Everything has been done to obtain perfectly sound grapes with the best maturity: Leaf pruning, green harvest throughout the vineyard. We have been working the soils for several years now, and we have noted that it is important to let the grass develop at the end of the season. This cover limits the water absorption by the vines when there are late rains. It is certainly one of the reasons that led to our best results in 2006. Work and knowledge of the vineyard always make the difference; this is even truer this year.

The 2007 Vintage is memorable due to an early flowering. Merlots matured very early, but because of harsh weather, the flowering was continued longer than normal. However, the Cabernets matured beautifully. Due to lack of sunny days and dry weather, we had to work harder than usual in the vineyard in order to ensure early pruning of the vines. We had to combat the lack of sunlight in the vineyards.

The burburst has been very slow due to the cool temperatures and the rains during the whole month of April. We have had to wait until beginning of May, with the first 10 sunny days, to see a fast shoot. The flowering started 8 to 10 days later than usual. The cool temperatures during the Merlots’ flowering and the warm ones during the Caber- nets made it so that there is little difference between the two grape varieties. The véraison has been slow. The first changes of colour came later than the average over the past 30 years. The work from springtime to the harvest, sharper year after year,and in which we are much more reactive, has partially balanced the lack of climatic genersity.

The budburst is fast and spreads over the first two weeks of April. The flowering of Merlots and Cabernets Sauvignons is rapidly taking place in late May with some very good weather conditions.

The 2010 growing season was marked by dry weather all over the region. Winter to summer was very cold, with temperatures 2-3°C below the normal average. The weather started off mild in April, but May was much cooler. Overall, the weather has remained cool for two consecutive years, with morning frost at the point of harvest on October 18th. The solar weather patterns for the 2010 season are notable and similar those of 2009. The month of April was exceptionally warm and sunny. Both years, 2009 and 2010, had great amounts of sun, even more than the great 2005 vintage year. Our ally was the great weather, all the way though the end of harvest.

After an early budbreak at the end of March, the unusually sunny days in April and May created a considerably advanced flowering, equally rapid for all of the grape varieties. After this early budbreak, a heat wave at the end of June unfortunately burnt some of the exposed young grape clusters. This dry weather was felt even more by extending the « veraison » time. The rain in mid July finally brought some relief to the situation.

At first, the 2012 vintage was to be difficult: whether our oceanic climate would have been forgotten in the last few years, we’ve been definitely reminded of our location, which is indeed rather good to produce great quality wines, but sometimes also quite humid. The vineyard had seldom needed such an amount of work, and all along the season, we kept going all through the vineyard. On the first 2 weeks of July, to compete the lack of sun, over 140 people came to “écharder” 100% of the vineyard. End of August, as we wanted to definitely homogenize the maturity, it’s been decided to “clean” clusters from each single still green and pink berry, in order to only keep the best. Finally, thanks to such a precise work and naturally low yields, maturity was reached only 1 week later than usual.

In recent years, we have forgotten what a « normal » vintage means. In one way or another, Mother Nature’s excesses have become the new standard. 2013 is a perfect example. Weather conditions in the first half of the year, week after week, dampened our natural optimism : late budbreak, cold, rainy, dreary spring, very difficult weather conditions during the flowering. Beginning of July, summer suddenly shows up. Temperatures soar. The vine doesn’t suffer however, as it finds plenty of water in the soil. But the sun is generous, and our morale is up. We deleaf, we do « échardage », and we work with precision in the vineyard.

After quite a warm and rainy winter, an early budburst, and a fast and homogeneous flowering, cautious vine-growers and winemakers experienced a slow «veraison». Once again the weather was good to us: all seasonal vineyard tasks in the first part of the year that are now part of our usual routine (such as getting rid of base bud shoots, leaf pruning, “échardage” (i.e. getting rid of laterals shoots specifically located in the cluster area), green harvest, could not compensate for the cool temperatures of the beginning of the summer. We began to doubt that we could produce a wine as great as vintage 2014. We desperately needed more sun and warmer temperatures…

Beginning in the spring, temperatures were warmer than average. At the end of May, floweringwas fast and homogeneous. In June and July, the warm temperatures led to a slow growing season, which stopped early. Conditions were similar to those in the best vintages.
In August, rains were on time to complete the “véraison” that had started by the end of July.

After a rather dry and warmwinter, the beginning of the growing season is rainy through June, giving way to a dry and hot summer. Bud-break took place in mid-March, and this slow, yet stable growth allowed us to forecast a late harvest. Thankfully, June revealed itself as perfect for a complete and rapid flowering on the Merlots, a little slower on the Cabernets, but with beautiful ripening overallon all varietals.

After a cold January month, February and March were quite mild and the budburst was fast and homogeneous. The vintage began to look promising; April was particularly beautiful, with important thermal amplitudes. The wind shied to the North. At dawn of April 27th and 28th, the sky was perfectly clear and temperatures fell below 0°C (32F). We are lucky; as the majority of Château Cantenac Brown vineyard did not suffer too much loss.

After this climatic shock, the following months were hot, especially the end of June where a heat wave boosted the vegetation. It was a true godsend.

In July and August, temperatures stayed reasonable; while the vines remained advanced compared to the thirty-year average. Finally a vintage in 7 with a high-quality level ? The summer was slightly fresher than usual and the rains during the beginning of September removed any doubt, we will not harvest a 1947. What a pity !

Nevertheless, the vintage has a great potential, thanks to all the attention to detail including leaf thinning, removal of secondary shoots, and even green harvest on some particular plots too overloaded.

2018 a tough miracle…

Before 2018, « oceanic climate » was a broad meteorological concept made of different nuances. In 2018, from spring to the beginning of summer, this oceanic climate joined the vineyard to remind us of its main characteristic: high humidity spread over the entire season.

After a complicated start of the season, nobody would have thought we would get such an amazing vintage. Once again, our job has been rewarded.

The 2019 year started under the rain with warm winter temperatures. As a consequence, the budburst took place 15 days sooner than usual. Flowering happened with slightly low temperatures and few rainy days caused flower abortion and millerandage.

On the other hand, these precipitations were beneficial at the beginning of summer and helped us to handle July’s temperatures. During veraison, the sudden dryness locked some berries; we will sort them with manual harvest or with the optical sorting table.

A new wind of enthusiasm blows across the team at Château Cantenac Brown with the arrival of “Famille Le Lous”. We thought of everything, from the vine to the bottle, using all methods possible to create one of the best wines of Margaux.

The vines awoke very early this year, in mid-March. After a beautiful beginning to Spring in the first weeks, even with some very heavy rain though June, the skies of the Médoc opened up to lovely periods of sunshine.

The Merlot and Cabernet took advantage of these windows to rapidly flower in the best conditions.

Particularly dry weather with several very hot days continued into mid-August where little spurts of rain allowed the vine to suffer slightly, and to jump start the ripening with a restrained hydration. In September, the wind accompanied the new heat wave in this last ripening phase, bringing about a unique concentration of the fruit.

The 2021 vintage will remain in our memory as a year that constantly tested our ability to adapt to varying weather conditions.
Particularly for this vintage, the Cantenac Brown team’s experience and the benchmarks achieved over time, have allowed us to adjust quickly to each scenario.
After a year on deck, from the cold front at the end of April to the humid early summer, our hard work over the year will have finally paid off.
Technical decisions had to be made, and the most important investment made in recent years, early leaf removal by hand, was performed at sunrise, along with a second leaf removal at sunset in August, to guarantee the best exposure of light and air to the grape clusters to achieve the best maturity. We performed a green harvest in the month of August with two passes on several plots during harvest.