Beaujolais, revived
For new crop of producers, what’s old is made nouveau with best sort of traditionalism
Reinvention is in Beaujolais’ blood.
It has been, for the better part of a millennium, ever since 1395, when Philip the Bold banished the Gamay Noir grape — the base material of nearly all the region’s wines — from the best parts of Burgundy.
Beaujolais, an apostrophe at Burgundy’s southern tail, was left to sort out its identity with what was assumed to be an inferior grape.
And it did. Gamay thrived through the centuries. The region’s fortunes were solidified, in a way, when the casual November tradition of sending out the harvest’s new wine became a global phenomenon. Beaujolais Nouveau both affirmed the region’s reputation and set it up for ruin. Nouveau’s main hype man, Georges Duboeuf, has been alternately lionized and vilified ever since.
Beaujolais fought back. A group dubbed the Gang of Four — Marcel Lapierre, Jean Foillard, Jean-Paul Thevenet and Guy Breton — stood up for artisanship and what would become the tenets of the socalled natural wine movement. (Some consider it a Gang of Five, if you count their friend Yvon Metras and his elusive wines.) The Gang redirected Beaujolais away from an industrial model. They taught the world the virtues of the 10 appellations of cru Beaujolais, top bottles that were the best defense against Nouveauification.
Now, reinvention once more. A raft of new and largely young producers is resculpting the region’s image. A successor generation is taking over the Gang’s crucial work. If you think you know the names to know in Beaujolais, think again.
I’ve chosen three bottles that help to illustrare the changes.
I’ll start with a name I’ve circled to before: Julien Sunier, whose wines have been added to my own cellar with great fre- quency in the past five years. Sunier, a Dijon native, came to Beaujolais by way of the large negociant Mommessin, whose wines he made for five years.
But he was entranced by the nuances of Beaujolais’ terroir, as well as by biodynamics, and secured about 7 acres on the edge between two appellations: wellknown Morgon, home to some of Beaujolais’ stateliest wines, and little-known Régnié next door.
Not to diminish his Morgon, but I find his best work in Régnié, the most recently minted of the 10 so-called cru Beaujolais. The area shares soils with both Morgon and neighboring Brouilly: granitic sand and clay.
His 2013 Régnié ($26; 12% alcohol; importer: JoliVin) comes from a south-facing 1960s planting adjacent to Sunier’s land in Morgon. It’s one of the best vintages I’ve had of this wine — ripe and tidy in its flavors, full of lacquered plum and aniseed rather than the earthy tones that can pop up in Sunier’s wines, plus a mineral intensity that’s almost more typical of Morgon. It reflects the full, warm qualities of 2013s. Despite Régnié’s reputation of wines meant in the near term, let this age for a bit.
Sunier is downright established compared to some newcomers, many of whom have built on the Gang’s naturalist cellar tendencies. We could discuss Julie Balagny, who came to Fleurie in 2009 and found, with Metras’ help, land to farm biodynamically. Or
Laurence and Remi Dufaitre, a couple who settled in Brouilly and whom Foillard took under his wing. Or the auspiciously named France Gonzalvez, whose charming wines, primarily marked as simple “vin de France,” come from impressive old vines planted mostly in the region’s unheralded corners. Each has already found an audience on these shores more than equal to the small amounts of wine they export.
Nor is reinvention limited to newcomers. Take Yann Ber
trand, whose parents Guy and Annick in 1992 took over property in Fleurie and Morgon from Guy’s parents, Louis and Renee.
Growing up, Yann found himself in the company of Gang members and other local luminaries. As he’s taken over, he has pushed for organics (the
property was certified in 2013) and the old-fashioned winemaking adopted by what this informal New Gang: indigenous yeasts, little sulfur use and aging in old barrels.
Bertrand’s higher-end bottlings, like his old-vine Morgon, draw the most attention. But I’m partial to the 2013 Famille Bertrand Coup d’Folie Fleu
rie ($23; 12.5%; importer: Coeur Wine Co./Paris Wine Co.), from younger — “younger” here being 30 to 60 years old — vines on sandy, granitic soils.
It’s the sort of proper Fleurie that was in short supply for a number of years, unless you splurged for a bottle from a Gang member like Foillard. In the glass, Gamay on these soils shows a mix of crushed rocks and crushed flowers: rose hip, damson plum, fresh wild strawberries. More crucially, there’s a suaveness to the texture, a mineral kick with no hard edges. Consider Bertrand’s efforts a return to the best sort of traditionalism.
He has plenty of contemporaries from similarly established properties. Georges Descombes, a Gang of Four contemporary, mentored two young talents: his son Kevin and stepson Damien Coquelet. And, crucially, there is Math
ieu Lapierre, who has taken over the work of his father, Marcel. Marcel Lapierre, who died in 2010, was both the Gang’s spiritual anchor and arguably the most famous name in Beaujolais after Duboeuf.
Fame is an odd thing to discuss in Beaujolais, but it does point to one reason why you should dwell on these wines: They are slowly taking the place of what Burgundy used to offer. Even basic Burgundies have been driven — by a combination of global fame and finite supply — into unreasonable territory. If you have $30, you’re often better spending it on great Beaujolais.
At the same time, cellar work in Beaujolais has gotten ever more serious. Once, the technique known as semi-carbonic maceration (essentially, letting grapes collapse on themselves) was legion. Today, good Gamay grapes are often being treated more like Pinot Noir, with the goal of making profound, ageable wines rather than the simpler, breezier styles that once governed Beaujolais.
It can be seen in the work of winemakers like Anne-So
phie Dubois, a native Champenois who trained in Burgundy before coming to Beaujolais, where she was able to take charge of nearly 20 acres.
Dubois makes some of the most soulful, Burgundy-like versions of Beaujolais that I’ve encountered, including her
2011 Clepsydre Fleurie ($33; 12.5% alcohol; importer: Thomas Calder/Sacred Thirst Selections), from 60-year-old vines grown on granite. It immediately hits you with an earthy underbrush aspect to match ripe sloeberry fruit, plus pine bark and light shoyu — a Fleurie with a bit of fealty to the Cote d’Or.
Same with the wines of Louis-Clémant David Beaupère, especially his 2012 La Croix de la Boittière from Juliénas — a wine that not only whispers in Burgundian tones but is a rare success from the grueling 2012 vintage, when hail and frost hobbled the crop.
That year was, in its way, another turning point for Beaujolais, in that it forced many small vintners into financial distress. Property after property landed on the market.
It was a blow. But this is Beaujolais. Reinvention is always afoot, and few spots in France today are drawing such a great roster of emerging talent. Expect even more new names to appear in coming years. As always, Beaujolais has a remarkable ability to change the rules of the game.