Château Branaire-Ducru: Vineyards
Château Branaire-Ducru is tucked away in the south-eastern most part of the St Julien appellation, close neighbours being Château Beychevelle, which lies between Château Branaire-Ducru and the Gironde, Château Saint-Pierre and, of course, these four estates all having similar origins, Château Ducru-Beaucaillou. Indeed it would take only a few minutes of your day to walk from one château to the next, and indeed it would not be a difficult task to complete the full circuit.
These comments apply, however, solely to the châteaux. To complete a walking tour of the vineyards would be a more serious undertaking, and this is not merely down to the expanse of the area planted to vines. Several of these estates are quite parcellated, none more so perhaps than Château Branaire-Ducru. Today there are 60 hectares in all, the vineyard having grown from the 48 hectares documented by Bernard Ginestet when he visited during the 1980s, when researching his book St Julien (Aurum Press, 1984).
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