Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Aromas of black cherries and blueberries in addition to violets and granite. This is very structured with tension and polished tannins. Wonderful length and finesse.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Chignard's 2015 Fleurie les Moriers, from a site on the border with Moulin-à-Vent, is superb, opening in the glass with seductive aromas of ripe red fruits—raspberry, cherry and strawberry—that mingle with notes of violet, rose petal and mint. On the palate, the wine displays the richness and amplitude characteristic of the year, but its acids are succulent and its finish precise. A firm but fine chassis of tannin clamps down on the finish, and while this has more than enough fruit to make it pleasurable in the near term, this is definitely a candidate for five years of bottle age; it should enjoy considerable longevity.
Rating: 91+ -
Wine Enthusiast
This single vineyard wine comes from a steep parcel that is wedged between crus Fleurie and Moulin-à-Vent. It is deliciously packed with crisp cherry fruits and fine acidity. At the same time, it is structured, solid and with a core of tannins. It is a wine that will age for a while longer, so drink from late 2017.
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.