2015 Château Cantenac Brown, Cru Classé Margaux

The 2015 Cantenac Brown is superb. Translucent, weightless and totally finessed, the 2015 offers outstanding purity and exceptional overall balance. Sweet plum, tobacco, cedar, licorice and new leather are some of the many nuances that take shape in the glass, but it is the wine's purity that is most impressive. Hints of lavender, iron and smoke add shades of nuance on the tightly wound finish. Over the two weeks I followed it, the Grand Vin put on considerable depth and power. It will be interesting to see where things end up here, but the 2015 was superb all three times I tasted it. Cantenac Brown is one of the great still affordable wines of the year. Don't miss it.

The 2015 Cantenac Brown follows their excellent 2014 with another great Margaux. Here, a nuanced nose that does not come racing from the blocks, but keep your nose in the glass and it reveals detailed blackberry, cranberry and strawberry aromas that are neatly embroidered with the new oak. The palate is medium-bodied with fine, quite tensile tannin. There is breeding interwoven into this Margaux, palpable sophistication, and it finishes with panache, fanning out with lightly spiced red and black fruit. It is not the most ostentatious Margaux in what is a fecund season for the appéllation, but I suspect it will surprise a few wine-lovers as its ages.

Bright crimson. Very competent representative of the vintage with marked ripeness on the nose but then rather chunky and bitter on the finish - like Oxford marmalade. Not much lift. A tad stodgy.

Very structured and muscular with black currant, chewy tannins and a flavorful finish. Full body. Yet polished and intriguing.