Winemaker Notes
Almost thirty years ago, Kermit introduced U.S. wine drinkers to four disciples of Jules Chauvet, the Beaujolais vigneron who experimented in making “natural” wines with unparalleled success. One of these followers was Jean Foillard, a soft-spoken perfectionist who has arguably become the Beaujolais’s most talented vigneron working today. He crafts reds that range from silky to succulent from the cru of Morgon’s top sites. Their balance, finesse, and age-worthiness are unrivaled in the region.
Now, Jean’s son Alex is fashioning his own reds from Gamay, and the apple certainly does not fall far from the tree. Alex has already joined the ranks of the region’s most gifted—and well-trained—producers. Where Alex has strayed is in the appellations he has chosen as a starting point. Working in Brouilly and the Côte de Brouilly, which represent Beaujolais’s two southernmost crus, just south of Morgon, Alex plays with the sometimes mind-bending and rule-defying nature of the special terroirs here.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
I like the juicy raspberry and mulberry notes, laced with red licorice, nutmeg and rooibos tea. Deliciously spicy with fantastic concentration, wrapped up in a medium body and supported by creamy tannins. Drink now.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Côte de Brouilly wafts from the glass with aromas of raspberries, plums, peonies and orange rind. Medium to full-bodied, rich and lively, with powdery tannins and a perfumed, sapid finish, it has turned out well.
Delightfully playful, but also capable of impressive gravitas, Gamay is responsible for juicy, berry-packed wines. From Beaujolais, Gamay generally has three classes: Beaujolais Nouveau, a decidedly young, fruit-driven wine, Beaujolais Villages and Cru Beaujolais. The Villages and Crus are highly ranked grape growing communes whose wines are capable of improving with age whereas Nouveau, released two months after harvest, is intended for immediate consumption. Somm Secret—The ten different Crus have their own distinct personalities—Fleurie is delicate and floral, Côte de Brouilly is concentrated and elegant and Morgon is structured and age-worthy.
The bucolic region often identified as the southern part of Burgundy, Beaujolais actually doesn’t have a whole lot in common with the rest of the region in terms of climate, soil types and grape varieties. Beaujolais achieves its own identity with variations on style of one grape, Gamay.
Gamay was actually grown throughout all of Burgundy until 1395 when the Duke of Burgundy banished it south, making room for Pinot Noir to inhabit all of the “superior” hillsides of Burgundy proper. This was good news for Gamay as it produces a much better wine in the granitic soils of Beaujolais, compared with the limestone escarpments of the Côte d’Or.
Four styles of Beaujolais wines exist. The simplest, and one that has regrettably given the region a subpar reputation, is Beaujolais Nouveau. This is the Beaujolais wine that is made using carbonic maceration (a quick fermentation that results in sweet aromas) and is released on the third Thursday of November in the same year as harvest. It's meant to drink young and is flirty, fruity and fun. The rest of Beaujolais is where the serious wines are found. Aside from the wines simply labelled, Beaujolais, there are the Beaujolais-Villages wines, which must come from the hilly northern part of the region, and offer reasonable values with some gems among them. The superior sections are the cru vineyards coming from ten distinct communes: St-Amour, Juliénas, Chénas, Moulin-à-Vent, Fleurie, Chiroubles, Morgon, Regnié, Brouilly, and Côte de Brouilly. Any cru Beajolais will have its commune name prominent on the label.