Henri Lurton, owner and winemaker of the Margaux winery Château Brane-Cantenac was sanguine that the 2014 vintage will be excellent – similar to the great vintage of 2000, showing great aromatic richness, power and the same softness of tannins, when interviewed by JamesSuckling.com.
Despite a lackluster summer – it was relatively cold and humid – September and October were perfect, helping the grapes to achieve a very good maturation, according to the winemaker. This helped to create exceptional conditions for harvest, he explained.
“I am very happy with the blending of 2014. We chose more cabernet sauvignon than usual because the late conditions of maturation helped a lot with this grape variety,” he continued. His comments echo some of the predictions about cabernet sauvignon that James made in a blog just published, which is the first in many reports as he gets his en primeur tastings underway.
“The wine has a lot of fruit with good roundness and very soft and ripe tannins,” adds Lurton.
He does admit that the 2000 vintage and 2014 vintage did have different growing seasons and comprise different blends – 2000 had more merlot added – but at this stage, 2000 is the closest comparison he can think of.
-Natalie Wang
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