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 time to walk from one château to the next, and it would not be a difficult task to complete the full circuit. It would certainly be a lot easier than completing the Marathon du Médoc!
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).
There is only a small nubbin of vines that belong to this property wrapped around one side of the château, on the left of the D2 as you enter the village of Beychevelle. Most notably, the vineyards to the south of the château are part of the Château Beychevelle estate, and those further back belong to Château Saint-Pierre and Château Ducru-Beaucaillou, the vineyards of the four châteaux intimately interdigitating.
