The overlooked brilliance of Branaire-Ducru 

At the end of last century, when there were grounds for optimism about Russia’s future, an increasingly popular word expressed this: stabilnost – stability. Russians would roll it round their mouths as a Texan would use ‘goddam’, or an English after-dinner drinker of an earlier vintage might evoke his enjoyment of the beverage by letting the word ‘port’ linger across his palate. I do not suppose that there is much talk of stabilnost in Moscow these days, and we could do with some of it here. Still, there are ways of banishing dull care, if only for a few hours, and drinking fine claret is one of them.

The other evening, I was at a tasting of Branaire-Ducru and my first conclusion was that I had not drunk it nearly often enough. It is a St Julien. Saint Julien himself was a curious cove. An enthusiastic deer hunter, he was once confronted by a hart which told him that if he continued to hunt, a terrible fate awaited him. He did, and the hart’s predictions came true. He repented, received divine forgiveness and then opened an inn, becoming the patron saint of travellers: from Greta Thunberg to Eastcheap.

The area named after him is the smallest of the great four Medoc communes, bordered by Pauillac and Margaux. I once wrote that you drink a Pauillac but undress a Margaux, so St Julien is betwixt and between. It does not possess a first growth, though Léoville Las Cases and Ducru-Beaucaillou are super seconds and Léoville Barton not far behind. Branaire-Ducru was awarded fourth-growth status in the 1855 classification but has certainly earned promotion.

It can also lay claim to stabilnost. It emerged from the break-up of the great Beychevelle estate in the late 17th century.