Domaine Chasselay Beaujolais Les Grands Eparcieux 2008

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    Domaine Chasselay Beaujolais Les Grands Eparcieux 2008 Front Label
    Domaine Chasselay Beaujolais Les Grands Eparcieux 2008 Front Label

    Product Details


    Varietal

    Region

    Producer

    Vintage
    2008

    Size
    750ML

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    Domaine Chasselay

    Domaine Chasselay

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    Domaine Chasselay, France
    The Chasselay family is one of those deep-rooted European families that can trace their lineage way back—in this case to 1418 and to the very place where they farm grapes today! That would be in the village of Chatillon d'Azergues in the Pierres Dorees, the land of the golden stones, so called because of the local limestone quarried for buildings. The stone is ochre-colored, and gives villages here the hue of the sun.

    This is the southern half of Beaujolais, the place where affluent Lyonnais families built country estates a short ride outside of their city. The architecture is frequently grand and regal, the villages are often darling postcards, and the wine is ostensibly simple—all straight Beaujolais, sans a hyphenated villages designation, let alone that of a cru. The land here is flatter, the soil richer, and mixed with Beaujolais's northern granite there is a good amount of limestone (which can make for fine whites). The average Gamay tends to be lighter than its sibling to the north, and for sure it is less expensive.

    But that is the average. Fabien Chasselay, his sister Claire, and their father Jean-Gilles make any number of cru Beaujolais from rented parcels, but they take every bit as much pride in their own old vines in Chatillon d'Azergues. They have farmed organically since 2000, received certification in 2006, harvest later than most, and they have always undertaken fermentations with indigenous yeast and without sulfur additions (the latter is done lightly at bottling). It's worth noting too that Fabien did a part of his training at Domaine Bruno Clavelier in Vosne-Romanée, and he came to favor a degree of de-stemming rather than doing Beaujolais' traditional, 100% whole cluster fermentations. The result of all of this is Beaujolais of unusual succulence and pithy fruit.

    The domaine owns 30 acres of vines in the Pierres Dorees. Fifteen of those acres, parsed among many parcels, are reserved for the cuvee Quatre Saisons. Some parcels grow in limestone soils, others in granitic soils. The average vine age is fifty-five years old. Fermentation is done with roughly half the grapes de-stemmed, and the other half kept whole on the clusters. The wine is raised for roughly four months in huge, old wooden casks, and production averages 1,650 cases annually.

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    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.

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    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.

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