The 2015 Baron de Brane has one of the more flamboyant Margaux bouquets, boasting precocious red cherry, crushed strawberry and cedar aromas, all very cohesive and displaying good vigor. The fresh, tensile palate is medium-bodied with fine-grained tannin, offering dark cherries, bay leaf and cedar toward the persistent finish. This is much better than the bottle opened at the vertical a few months earlier. Tasted blind at the Southwold 2015 Bordeaux tasting.

A perfumy black tea note weaves around here, while the core of gently mulled cherry and red currant fruit unwinds slowly, letting additional alder and warm stone accents emerge. Shows a light iron echo on the finish. Best from 2019 through 2029.