Winemaker Notes
Rich and very fine wine, with silky tannins from pink granite soil in a place called "La roche pilée."
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Please let me lie in this bed of violets and velvet and forget the world. In spite of the great concentration on the suave, medium-bodied palate, this is so fresh, delicate and precise. Then comes the sensuous and energetic crescendo of a finish that sweeps you away. From 0.8 hectares of 95-year-old vines. Fermented and matured in concrete tanks.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
From vines planted in 1929, the 2023 Morgon Corcelette is a very serious wine marked by high concentration and notable tension. The palate offers rich dark-berry fruits, vine smoke and black pepper, tightly framed by a weave of smooth but close-knit tannins. With its well-developed mid-palate and long, persistent peppery finish, the wine hints at a further level of depth and complexity that will continue to develop over time as its tension recedes. Rating: 91+
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.