Winemaker Notes
Bright brilliant colour, reflecting garnet and violet nuances. Bouquet, fine and elegant with notes of cherry and blueberry. Palate, extremely expressive, with a freshness highlighting the balance between structure and aromatic richness.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This has some rather earthy notes and a mellow palate with dried berries and gently firm tannins.
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Wine Enthusiast
Ripe cherry and red-berry flavors burst from the glass with this deliciously fruity wine. It has a soft texture and richness cut with acidity. This is a wine to savor from 2019.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The word on Beaujolais is mixed as consumers struggle to figure out what to do with Gamay. The long-held notion that this grape is just a fun ride on the midway is not as accurate as many folks think. The 2016 Château de Poncé Fleurie L Pré Roi is indeed a wine of substance and character. TASTING NOTES: This wine is active and bright. Its vibrant aromas and flavors of ripe red fruits stay vibrant and bright. Pair it with a delectable charcuterie plate. (Tasted: March 14, 2019, San Francisco, CA)
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.