Chateau Branaire-Ducru Saint-Julien 1996 bis-hidden A lighter-style port achieves a

A lighter-style port achieves a nice balance between youthful fruit and mellowness achieved with 3 years maturation in oak casks

The result is a bourbon with less spice

and a quiet thrum of baking spice

long finish

Chateau Branaire-Ducru Saint-Julien 1996 bis-hidden A lighter-style port achieves aBranaire Ducru has long been the connoisseur's Saint Julien Fourth Growth pricing, classical winemaking, no flash. The 1996 vintage is now thirty years old and squarely in mature territory, made in one of those classic cool vintage years where ripe Cabernet held onto bracing Left Bank acidity. The result is everything you'd want from a fully resolved Mdoc: cedar, tobacco, dried red and black fruit, leather, and that beam of acidity keeping it lively.