Winemaker Notes
Les Vergers are plots of Cru Régnié which benefit from an exceptional location. The vines are located in the heart of an orchard on the outskirts of an old castle. The nose is very floral, evoking scents of peony and aromas of small red fruits. The very sensual and fleshy palate, with mineral notes, gives way to a beautiful acidity on the finish. A wine full of subtlety.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
For a 2021 this is brimming with sour cherry fruit, plus herbal and savory complexity. Fascinating interplay of fresh and ripe elements on the concentrated and lively medium-bodied palate. Long crisp finish with wet stone minerality. Only the third vintage from this new producer! Sustainable. Drink or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
When tasted in 2023, the 2021 Régnié Les Vergers was the most open of the 2021s, presenting with notes of tangy red cherries, peony blossoms and baking spices. Medium-bodied, it holds a nice concentration of flavor, latticed with abundant but integrated tannins, revealing a layered mid-palate toned with flavors of white peppercorns and slate. The flavors run long, finishing on a mouth-watering, crisp high.
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.