Higher Grounds: Showcasing the Versatility of Gamay in the Hilly Uplands of Beaujolais’ Lesser Known Cru Villages of Chiroubles, Côte-de-Brouilly, and Brouilly.

3 Memorial Weekend Holiday Packs Picks

Memorial Day is a time to reflect on mortality as well as to celebrate the rebirth of warmth and leisure time. No wine captures the complexity emotions better than Beaujolais, which can be light and lyrical as well as profound and nuanced. These are ideal wines with which to celebrate Memorial Day, the gateway to summer and the joy of transcendence.

• 7-Bottle Chiroubles Sampler Pack $234
• 7-Bottle Côte-de-Brouilly Sampler Pack $264
• 4-Bottle Brouilly Sampler Pack $134

The Beaujolais Underground: A Veritable Mosaic of Soil

The biggest error a Beaujolais neophyte makes is an expectation one-dimensional predictability. To be fair, the mistake easy to make based on the region’s reliance on Gamay, a grape that elsewhere may produce simple and often mediocre wine.

In Beaujolais’ wondrous terroir, however, it thrives.

In fact, this terroir is so complex that it nearly defies description. But Inter-Beaujolais certainly tried: Between 2009 and 2018, they commissioned a colossal field study to establish a detailed cartography of the vineyards and to create a geological snapshot of the exceptional richness found throughout Beaujolais’ 12 appellations.

Beaujolais may not be geographically extensive, but geologically, it’s a different story. The region bears witness to 500 million years of complex interaction between the eastern edge of the Massif Central and the Alpine phenomenon of the Tertiary period, leaving one of the richest and most complex geologies in France. Over 300 distinct soil types have been identified. Fortunately, Gamay—the mainstay grape, accounting for 97% of plantings—flourishes throughout these myriad terroirs. In the south, the soil may be laden with clay, and sometimes chalk; the landscape is characterized by rolling hills. The north hosts sandy soils that are often granitic in origin. This is the starting point wherein each appellation, and indeed, each lieu-dit draws its individual character.

There are ten Crus, the top red wine regions of Beaujolais, all of them located in the hillier areas to the north, which offer freer-draining soils and better exposure, thereby helping the grapes to mature more fully.

Courtesy of Wine Scholar Guild

Unearthing Potential: Beaujolais’ Lesser-Known Villages

Beaujolais is a painter’s dream, a patchwork of undulating hills and bucolic villages. It is also unique in that relatively inexpensive land has allowed a number of dynamic new wine producers to enter the business. In the flatter south, easy-drinking wines are generally made using technique known as carbonic maceration, an anaerobic form of closed-tank fermentation that imparts specific, recognizable flavors (notably, bubblegum and Concord grape). Often sold under the Beaujolais and Beaujolais-Villages appellations, such wines tend to be simple, high in acid and low in tannin, and are ideal for the local bistro fare. Beaujolais’ suppler wines generally come from the north, where the granite hills are filled with rich clay and limestone. These wines are age-worthy, and show much more complexity and depth.

The top of Beaujolais’ classification pyramid is found in the north, especially in the appellations known as Cru Beaujolais: Brouilly, Chénas, Chiroubles, Brouilly,  Côte-de-Brouilly, Fleurie, Juliénas, Morgon, Moulin-à-Vent, Régnié and Saint-Amour.

Not all Beaujolais Crus are created equal, and some have proven more ‘brandable’ than others. Morgon, Moulin-à-Vent and Fleurie have all found main-character energy on this Gamay-red carpet. But it is generally in the appellations without as much surface celebrity that some of the best bargains can be found. This week we’ll highlight three of them: Chiroubles, Brouilly, and the AOP-within-an-AOP, Côte-de-Brouilly along with the game-changing winemakers they have fostered. Among the more amazing wines in this collection are those from Gamay vines that are approaching, or have surpassed, the century mark.

Chiroubles: Terroir Lifted by Altitude

When a single grape variety is called upon to express itself in multiple personalities, elevation takes on special significance. As the highest of Beaujolais’ ten Crus, Chiroubles produces wine with unique charms, combining delicacy and elegance with a crisp spine of acidity—features that arise from an increase of solar rays, greater temperature fluctuations, scarce water resources and more dramatic weather patterns. Chiroubles’ beauty is the face of challenge.

With a scant eight hundred acres under vine, Gamay finds a special affinity for the steep, sandy slopes of eroded granite, which stores and reflects daytime heat to help balance the fierce diurnal shift. Meanwhile, good drainage ensures that the vines focus on the production of high-quality berries rather than leaf growth.

Chiroubles’ vineyards were first established by Benedictine monks during the Middle Ages, and the region (officially delimited as an AOP in the 1930s along Brouilly and Moulin-à-Vent) was home to Victor Pulliat, whose work in root grafting helped save the French wine industry from extinction during the phylloxera scourge of the 19^th century.

Seven-Bottle Côte-de-Brouilly Sampler Pack for $234

Domaine Steeve Charvet
Cru Chiroubles

Steeve (not a typo) Charvet is the sixth generation of Chiroublesois to cultivate Gamay vines in the appellation; his father Armand began to bottle wine and sell it directly from the property and through trade fairs. Steeve took over in 2010.

“I have been passionate about viticulture since I was little and I am in love with nature,” he says. “So, the profession of winemaker was an obvious choice for me. I respect a human-scale production and its environment, to date I have twenty acres. My wines come exclusively from my vines, I do not buy grapes or wine, only the grapes from my vines are vinified.”

Steeve Charvet, Domaine Steeve Charvet

Steeve considers himself an ‘anti-fashion’ winemaker who makes it a point of honor to be as non-interventionist as possible and to allow the maximum potential of each vintage to express itself. This methodology, admittedly, has pitfalls: “Nature can sometimes be cruel, such as during periods of frost, hail, or severe drought, while it can also be generous with welcome rain and ideal sunshine. We must know how to let it be and harvest what it gives us. Our vines are obviously not irrigated, and it is the water from the sky and the sunshine that play a role in the vintage effect.”

 1  Domaine Steeve Charvet, 2021 Chiroubles ($28)
Not to overuse the alliterations, but plum, peony and pink peppercorn all perfume this charming, entry-level Chiroubles. As is his usual M.O., Charvet ferments on indigenous yeasts, and aging occurs in concrete tanks and old Burgundy barrels to emphasize the purity and character of the Gamay grape.

Domaine de La Grosse Pierre
Cru Chiroubles

Like Steeve Charvet, Pauline Passot comes from a winemaking family in Chiroubles, but unlike Steeve, she was not initially drawn to the profession. She studied marketing, and ultimately became a sommelier at the Michelin star restaurant Pierre Orsi in Lyon. It was there that she realized that her family wines from Chiroubles stood head-to-head with many of the pricier and more exclusive wines of France, and that there was an opportunity for her to improve even upon that. Winemaking studies in Beaune were followed by stints at several wineries, including Lafarge.

Pauline Passot, Domaine de la Grosse Pierre

“In 2016, I oversaw my first harvest,” she says,”and from there worked my way into the now fifteen acres on fermage (rented) from my parents. One of my first steps was to begin conversion to organic methods, but using traditional viniculture: Fermentation is in a mixture of steel and 600-liter casks, there is little destemming, little extraction and a low fermentation temperature. I believe that it is precise attention to detail that makes a wine shine.”

After several poor years for Beaujolais Nouveau, Pauline is the most highly acclaimed rans of Beaujolais growers creating serious terroir-driven wines.

 2  Domaine de La Grosse Pierre ‘Claudius’, 2022 Chiroubles – La Grosse Pierre ($29)
Sourced from high-altitude vineyards nearly a hundred years old, this bright and elegant Chiroubles is flecked with crunchy red berries, violets and a hint of spice. A nice wine to serve with a slight chill on a summer’s day.

 3  Domaine de La Grosse Pierre, 2023 Chiroubles – La Grosse Pierre ($30)
‘La Gross Pierre’ is Pauline Passot’s largest holding, a ten-acre, east-facing lieu-dit boasting the classic pink granite terroir of the region, where vines average 45 years in age. The wine shows sweet cranberry, spring strawberries and velvety tannins.
 

 4  Domaine de La Grosse Pierre ‘Pauline Passot’, 2020 Chiroubles – Grille Midi  ($43)
‘Grille-Midi’ is Passot’s flagship lieu-dit, a parcel of vines that extends into Fleurie and is considered one of the top vineyards in Beaujolais. Vinification is classic whole-cluster open carbonic, aged in neutral demi-muids and bottled without filtering and minimal sulfites at bottling. An elevated expression of old-vine Beaujolais, the wine shows bright, ripe fruit balanced by acidity.

Domaine de Vernus
Cru Chiroubles

In literature, a character study is a critical examination of a single character to understand not only their significance to a given narrative, but as a way of better understanding the work as a whole. This week, we will undertake a similar focus on a lone, but phenomenal Beaujolais winemaker (Guillaume Rouget of Domaine de Vernus) in order to see how a single talented vigneron can exemplify the moods, the changes, the whims of a region where a diverse terroir remains committed to a single grape variety, Gamay.

Guillaume Rouget with father Emmanuel Rouget, Domaine Emmanuel Rouget in Vosne-Romanée and Flagey-Echézeaux

Rouget certainly comes with a proper pedigree: The grand-nephew of Henri Jayer (the Burgundian innovator known for making some of the most critically acclaimed and expensive Pinot Noirs in the world), he was trained to the vine from childhood, first by his father Emmanuel Rouget and then at the École des Vins de Bourgogne in Beaune. When he decided to join forces with Domaine de Vernus owner Frédéric Jametton in Régnié-Durette, it was to pursue a shared goal: Producing elegant, racy wines that display the intense fruitiness of Gamay along with age-worthy structure that can develop complexity over time alongside the best Burgundies. Guillaume is in charge of the entire production chain, from cultivation through all phases of vinification, ultimately taking part in the marketing of the estate’s wines. A true renaissance man in Beaujolais, his handling of various top Crus may not be ‘Beaujolais Nouveau,’ but it is very much the new Beaujolais.

 5  Domaine de Vernus, 2019 Chiroubles ($27)
From the highest-altitude vines in Beaujolais with an average age of 63 years in the Verbomet lieu-dit and 36 years in Châtenay, both featuring terroir built on shallow granitic soil. The back-breaking work required to harvest on the steep slopes of Chiroubles produces an airy, intensely perfumed wine with silky notes of black cherry, plum and raspberry with a pronounced minerality and electric acidity.

Mélanie et Daniel Bouland
Cru Chiroubles

Daniel Bouland has been called reclusive and solitary—he has also been called the best artisanal vigneron in Beaujolais. When collectors compare him to more flamboyant regional names like Foillard and Lapierre, it is always favorably, at least in part because of his obsessive respect for micro-terroirs—in French, ‘pur’ terroir. Working with fewer than twenty acres of impeccably cultivated vines in the Morgon lieux-dits of Corcelette, Bellevue and Les Delys, plus small parcels in Chiroubles and Cote de Brouilly, Bouland’s wines are approachable upon release, but created with such a backbone that his terroir’s mineral nuances will continue to become more pronounced with five or more years in the cellar.

Daniel Bouland, Mélanie et Daniel Bouland

With the success of Cuvée Mélanie, named for Daniel Bouland’s daughter, Bouland has added her name to current bottlings beneath the name ‘Mélanie et Daniel Bouland’, possibly in advance of the younger Bouland ultimately taking charge.

 6  Mélanie et Daniel Bouland, 2022 Chiroubles – Châtenay ($41)
When the name Châtenay appears hyphen-linked to Chiroubles, it refers to a specific granitic terroir within the Chiroubles appellation near the Morgon border. Typical of wines from this area, it exhibits aromas of black cherries, blackberries, orange bitters, violets and sweet spices.

Guy Breton
Cru Chiroubles

Guy Breton took over the family domain from his grandfather in 1986—up until then,  the family had been selling their fruit to the large cooperative wineries which dominated the region. The rise of imported yeast cultures to impart flavor and aroma, the use of high-tech carbonic maceration and the widespread commercialization of Beaujolais Nouveau played hell with the region’s reputation, and to much of the wine world, Beaujolais came to be seen as one-dimensional, lacking any expression of the native terroir.

Guy Breton

Following the example of traditionalist Jules Chauvet, Guy and three other local vignerons initiated a ‘back-to-nature’ movement, calling for called for a return to the old practices of viticulture and vinification. This began with old vines and refusing to use synthetic herbicides or pesticides. They harvested late and sorted rigorously to remove all but the healthiest grapes, adding minimal doses of sulfur dioxide or none at all, and refusing both chaptalization and filtration.

“The end result allows my wine to express itself naturally,” he says, “without make-up or plastic surgery: rustic, spicy, loaded with schist minerals and at the same time, refreshing and deep-down delicious.”

 7  Guy Breton ‘Cuvée Léa’, 2020 Chiroubles ($39)
Guy Breton loves to vinify in a style that is light, bright and juicy—as such, the high-altitude, steep, decomposed granite slopes and old vines of Chiroubles are well suited. From three, recently acquired acres of 60-year-old vines, ‘Cuvée Lea’ shows floral, succulent aromatics bursting with notes of forest berries, and so delicate on its feet that it serves as a user-friendly counterpoint to some of the more structured Cru wines from Beaujolais.

Côte-de-Brouilly: At the Summit

Mont Brouilly is the icon that defines this Beaujolais Cru, and as cream rises to the top, the most elegant and nuanced wines of the region are found on the upper slopes of the mountain. These are captured in the Côte-de-Brouilly AOP, which is surrounded by lower-lying vineyards of the larger appellation, Brouilly.

The slopes of Mont Brouilly are littered with bluestone. This distinctive blue-green rock, known as diorite, is a major factor in the wines’ flavor profile, contributing to liveliness, structure and mineral character. Unlike granite, which covers about a quarter of Brouilly terroir, bluestone has a better capacity to absorb rain and limit erosion. Unlike granite, bluestone is not siliceous and does not disintegrate into sand; it tends to produce clay, which also improves water retention. Not only that but there are also noticeable differences between diorite wines from the mountain’s cooler north side, often marked by licorice notes. The south side of the mountain produces richer fruit wines, so if  a winemaker is fortunate enough to have plots on different sides of the hill, she can play as a palette to build nuanced assemblages.

Atop the mountain, the chapel Notre-Dame aux Raisins, was built in the vain hope of protecting the vineyard powdery mildew, frost and hail that had ravaged it in 1850 and 1852.

Seven-Bottle Côte-de-Brouilly Sampler Pack for $264

Julien Duport
Cru Côte de Brouilly

In Julien Duport’s family, winemaking skipped a generation. Although his grandparents planted and farmed Gamay in the Côte-de-Brouilly, his father became a pompier—a fireman.  At the age of 21, having completed an undergraduate degree in enology at the local Bel Air college and working with winemaker Laurent Martray and others, Julien took over the family acres, and rather than dousing flames, opted to set the world of Beaujolais on fire.

His near obsessive passion for tradition is infused throughout his process. He farms with a horse and plow, and throughout this time-consuming effort, he meditates. Like his grandfather, he ferments in cement tanks using native wild yeasts, following which the wines enjoy a long élevage in neutral barrels and large foudres and are then bottled without any filtration or fining.

Julien Duport

He says, “I believe these wines are a historical throwback to the time when Beaujolais growers used to sell their wine in barrels, long before carbonic maceration became the trendy winemaking technique that has now usurped the rich and interesting wines of the past.”

‘The past’ meets the present in La Boucheratte, Julien’s schist-flecked vineyard where the Gamay vines were planted 102 years ago.

“This site was tended by horse up until 1985 and then again when I took control,” he explains. “It’s incredible that vines this old are producing at all anymore, and all the more incredible when you taste La Boucheratte. Part of the intensity comes from the windiness of the site, which leads the Gamay skins to get tough and thick and filled with tannin. Rather than coaxing an extraction of this site, I attempt to unearth the fleshiest representation of Gamay possible. I reject the homogenization of Beaujolais in general and Côte de Brouilly in particular.”

 1  Julien Duport, 2020 Côte-de-Brouilly – Brouilly ($29)
Avoid confusion going in: ‘Brouilly’ is a lieu-dit on the slopes of the mountain quite entirely within the Côte-de-Brouilly AOP, not Brouilly. This vineyard of 60-year-old vines distinguishes itself with a dose of blue schist in the pink granite soils. (Schist is made up of compressed sheets of clay formed by the plate movements when the mountain was formed). The wine shows resin-like aromatics with vibrant spiced red- and blue-fruit character.

 2  Julien Duport ‘La Sueur au Front’, 2020 Côte-de-Brouilly ($49)
Translated literally, ‘La Sueur au Front’ means ‘sweat of the brow,’ but the assurance is that the reference is not to the content of the bottle but from the fact that the vineyard is on a 45% slope and requires an inordinate amount of labor to harvest. The bluestone terroir produces a spicy character, and the elevation leaves an acidic astringency balanced by the fruit.

 3  Julien Duport ‘La Boucheratte’, 2020 Côte-de-Brouilly ($38)
100% Gamay on a steep slope of bluestone from vines planted in 1900, 1920, 1940 and 1948. The tiny parcel has western exposure between 800 and 1200 feet in elevation. Semi-carbonic maceration followed traditional maceration lasting 17 days, then aged for 18 months in neutral barrels. The wine maintains a bit of youthful intensity, indicating that it will continue to mature effortlessly. The size and weight of the wine is astonishing.

Mélanie et Daniel Bouland 
Côte de Brouilly

 4  Mélanie et Daniel Bouland ‘Cuvée Mélanie’, 2022 Côte-de-Brouilly ($41)
The cuvée is from 70-year-old vines, and demonstrates the rich, suave tannins that show pedigree, both for early drinking and further growth in the cellar. The wine is pure and sappy with black cherry and summery herbs, but shows a smoky top note almost reminiscent of a Rhône.

Guy Breton 
Côte de Brouilly

 5  Guy Breton, 2020 Côte-de-Brouilly ($39)
Textbook Breton, who favors an early harvest, cool fermentation, shorter maceration, neutral oak aging, and a unique fermentation technique Many practitioners of semi-carbonic maceration allow the juice at the bottom of the tank to sit with the remaining grapes, whose skins impart more tannin and density to the juice. Guy, in contrast, removes this juice and transports it to another tank in order to give the final wine less concentration and tannin.  The wine is ethereal and juicy with black and blue berries.

Jean-Paul Brun Terres Dorées
Côte de Brouilly

With a name from a fairy tale (‘House in the Land of the Golden Stones’), Domaine des Terres Dorées is a 150-acre vineyard located in Charnay, just north of Lyon. Owner/winemaker Jean Paul Brun is a champion of ‘old-style Beaujolais.’ And by ‘old’, he means an era before pesticides and herbicides, and especially, a time when native yeasts alone were used to ferment.

He says: “Virtually all Beaujolais is now made by adding a particular strain of industrial yeast known as 71B. It’s a laboratory product made in Holland from a tomato base, and when you taste Beaujolais with banana and candy aromas, 71B is the culprit. 71B produces a beverage, but without authenticity or charm.”

Jean-Paul Brun, Domaine des Terres Dorées

Brun also insists that Beaujolais drinks best at a lower degree of alcohol and that there is no need to systematically add sugar to the must (chaptalize) to reach alcohol levels of 12 to 13%.

“My Beaujolais is made to be pleasurable,” he maintains. “Light, fruity and delicious, not an artificially inflated wine that is only meant to shine at tasting competitions.”

“The emphasis is not on weight, but on fruit,” he adds. “Beaujolais as it once was and as it should be.”

 6  Jean-Paul Brun Terres Dorées, 2021 Côte-de-Brouilly ($23)
100% Gamay, but treated much like Pinot Noir in Burgundy, in this case with concrete tank fermentation starting with a ‘pied de cuve,’ where a small quantity of grapes are picked a couple of weeks before harvest to kick-start the fermentation process. There’s a lot of cherry here, with dark berry compote loaded with brisk acidity and minerality.

Alex Foillard
Côte de Brouilly

If you are not familiar with Beaujolais’ acclaimed Club de Cinq—the ‘Gang of Five,’ you should be: They are credited with re-introducing sustainable, biodynamic viticulture to the region, eschewing the use of pesticides at a time when they were deemed invaluable to successful grape growing. Influenced by the writings of Jules Chavet, a Beaujolais negociant (who was less concerned with health risks and more that the application of synthetics upsets the natural balance of the terroir), the gang included Joseph Chamonard, Marcel Lapierre, Jean-Paul Thèvenet, Guy Breton, and Jean Foillard (and sometimes Yvon Métras).

Alex Foillard is the son of Jean. Bolstered by this early exposure to the world of wine—specifically to the principles of sustainable farming and low-intervention—the younger Foillard studied agriculture at the Lycée Agricole in Montpellier, then earned a degree in viticulture and enology in Beaune while simultaneously interning at a well-respected domain in Nuits-Saint-Georges, in Australia and yet another with a producer in Japan.

Alex Foillard

At 24, Alex purchased a few acres in Brouilly and Côte-de-Brouilly, successfully diversifying the Foillard cellars, which until then had been pure Morgon with a bit of Fleurie. Although these new vineyards were not certified organic, Alex immediately began working them according to organic principles, 2016 marking his first harvest.

He says, “I like to think that my father’s soul is best reflected in these solo cuvées: I seek to make wines with seductive aromatic components, silky textures. This is achieved through whole-cluster fermentation with natural yeasts, no fining or filtration, and no additives of any kind save for a minute sulfur dose at bottling.”

 7  Alex Foillard, 2019 Côte-de-Brouilly ($45)
From vines between 30 and 60 years old grown on 30, 60 years grown on schist and granite and a light layer of sand. It shows brambly fruit, pomegranate and spice atop a crisp foundation with all the crunchy intensity of the Côte-de-Brouilly.

Brouilly: A Cru with a View

Nestled along slopes of a dormant volcano, Brouilly is the most southerly of the Beaujolais Crus. The proximity of the volcano has left the area saturated with rare blue diorite, a phenomenon that leaves the soil thin and stony—an ideal underbelly for deeply rooted, low yielding Gamay vines with an excellent concentration of flavor. The best vineyards of Brouilly are planted on the south-east-facing side where the vineyards are protected from winds from the nearby Beaujolais hills by Mont Brouilly itself, and are instead subject to early morning sunlight.

Rather than bluestone, Brouilly features granite as the main substratum. There are five limestone hills on the eastern side of the appellation, which on the whole (especially compared to Côte-de-Brouilly) is relatively flat, extending southward to the very end of the Crus and the beginning of the largest area devoted to Beaujolais-Villages.

Wine is too complicated for simple rules, but in general, the wines of Brouilly are less serious than those of its sister appellation on the mountain. Brouilly produces a lot of fun, light, fruity bistro wine meant for drinking young.

Four-Bottle Brouilly Sampler Pack for $134

Alex Foillard
Brouilly

 1  Alex Foillard, 2019 Brouilly ($45)
From a three-acre plot of fifty-year-old vine, the wine envelops the silky curtain that is a hallmark of Foillard with plenty of sun-drenched Gamay liveliness and a sold mineral core.

Julien Duport
Brouilly

 2  Julien Duport ‘Les Balloquets’, 2021 Brouilly ($29)
Les Balloquets is a small Gamay lieu-dit planted on a 45% slope of volcanic granite soil with amethyst and quartz and an eastern exposure. These vines are more than a century old. Duport relies on traditional Beaujolais winemaking, semi-carbonic and 15-18 days of maceration, then 18 months aging in neutral barrels. Amazing extraction and inky depth are hallmarks of these ancient vines; the wine shows dark spicy plum notes and beautifully mature tannins.

Domaine Romain Jambon
Cru Brouilly

‘Jambon’ means ham, and his friends call him ‘Slice,’ but beyond that, it’s all about the wine. His seventeen vineyard acres sits on an invisible line between Brouilly and Côte de Brouilly, but a stint in New Zealand as a winemaker gave him valuable experience, but convinced him to produce Beaujolais using Burgundian methodology.

Romain Jambon, Domaine Romain Jambon

“I de-stem in their fashion and till the soils to push the roots deeper,” he says. “Gamay is an easy varietal to cultivate; it can be made into fresh, new wines or make great wines for cellaring like Pinot Noir.”

Since his original purchase Romain has added another six acres previously belonging to his mother, including a small plot of Beaujolais-Villages. He continues to limit the use of weed killers throughout his terroirs, which are predominantly sandy loam covering a shallow bedrock of diorite and granite with pebbles, sand, clay and silt.

 3  Domaine Romain Jambon (Vin des Potes), 2022 Brouilly – Pierreux ($32)
Le Vin des Potes means ‘the wine of mates,’ and is a collaboration between best friends Yoan Tavares and Basile Passe who work hand-in-hand with various winemakers to create blends with their own signature. This is one such collaboration with Romain Jambon. 100% Gamay from 60-year old vines and semi-carbonic maceration showing sour cherry, oolong tea, violet and white pepper.

Pierre-Marie Chermette
Cru Brouilly

When a winemaker tries to bottle something for everyone, he/she is not always successful. The father, daughter and son team of Martine, Pierre-Marie and Jean-Etienne Chermette of Domaine du Vissoux are the exception to prove the rule, producing high quality white, red and Beaujolais rosé from crus such as Brouilly, Fleurie, Moulin-à-Vent, Saint-Amour, Crémants de Bourgogne as well as hand crafted fruit liqueurs, cassis and vine peach with ginger.

Jean-Étienne, Pierre-Marie and Martine Chermette

In 2002, Martine and Pierre-Marie Chermette acquired the La Rochelle plot in Moulin-à-Vent, a high-altitude lieu-dit with pink granitic soils and ideal south/southeast exposure. From this beautifully situated vineyard, the family wrests wines that live up to their reputation as a beacon of Beaujolais excellence, able to broadcast the region’s terroirs with authority: Old vines, diligent but traditional vinification and élevage in foudre are the rudiments of their approach.

 4  Pierre-Marie Chermette Vissoux, 2020 Brouilly – Pierreux ($30)
A textbook-perfect Brouilly from south-facing vines planted on granite scree. The lieu-dit name ‘Pierreux’ comes from the French word for stones, illustrating the make-up of the soil. The wine undergoes traditional Beaujolais processing, half-carbonic maceration with two pump-overs per day; 10 to 12 days of maceration in concrete tanks follow with no chaptalization, natural yeasting and bottling using a minimum of sulfur. The wine is crisp, fruit-forward and juicy with expressive aromas of ripe raspberries and wild strawberry, savory spice and zesty acidity.

Notebook …

Beaujolais’s Gamay: Complex and Thoughtful Wines with Instant Appeal.

‘The pleasure of now’ seems to be a 21st century operative, and when lighting delivery is the mandatory expectation, Gamay’s ability to deliver the goods within a year or so of bottling have it well-positioned to fill this need. Long appreciated for its hedonistic burst of fresh, grapey quaffability, Gamay’s more brooding face was kept as a guarded secret by the Cru cult, who often turned their noses up at plebian versions and relished in the meatier versions grown in hallowed vineyards.

But these noses should have been placed in the glass. Much of Beaujolais’ signature aromatics come from carbonic maceration, a method embraced (at least in part) by most Beaujolaisien winemakers in all appellations. In this style, intact grape bunches ferment inside their own skins with carbon dioxide used as a catalyst, either introduced or occurring naturally as a byproduct of fermentation. Once the alcohol reaches 2%, the grapes burst and release their juice naturally, whereupon a normal yeast fermentation finishes the job.

Even wines only partially fermented via carbonic maceration show bright fruit with aromas that bounce from the glass. A hybridization of these two faces of Gamay, which some call ‘street carbo,’ has as many varieties as there are experimentative winemakers. The complexity in the top-shelf Beaujolais are the result of superior fruit and—especially among practitioners of ‘Burgundy-style’ Beaujolais—from the oak-aging that is becoming more common.

Either way, the 21st century movement in Beaujolais is a step away from wines that could, even in the most cynical interpretation, be called ‘standardized.’

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Posted on 2025.05.15 in Côte-de-Brouilly, Cote de Brouilly, Chenas, France, Beaujolais, Wine-Aid Packages