Planet of the Grapes: Beaujolais - motley cru
This piece is taken from Planet of the Grapes, Jason Wilson's new series of quarterly digital wine guides. Volume 1: Alternative Reds explores red wines that offer wine lovers a different path into the world of wine with over 140 recommendations.
*
I've always felt a little sorry for Beaujolais and the gamay grape from which it was made. Beaujolais sits just south of Burgundy, where the oh-so-popular pinot noir is king. If I think of gamay as a person, I picture someone who's got the worst frenemy — the popular cheerleader, the star quarterback, the supermodel mom, the successful internet billionaire — living right next door.
I mean, everyone loves their pinot noir, don't they? Pinot noir is, like, the greatest wine ever! Remember that movie Sideways? If we're being super honest, it was a pretty lame movie, but remember how much everyone started loving pinot noir after that? Boy, suddenly that pinot noir started to get really expensive, didn't it? And there's no better pinot noir than what comes from Burgundy, right? Growing Burgundy pinot noir must be like printing money! I picture gamay sighing heavily and her shoulders slumping when she thinks about pinot noir.
Gamay, after all, is a grape that has been disparaged for over six centuries. In 1395, the Duke of Burgundy, Philippe the Bold — in his propoganda to establish Burgundy wine as the world's finest — outlawed the cultivation of "vile and disloyal" gamay. He declared gamay as full of "very great and horrible harshness," unfit for human consumption and ordered it uprooted so the more "elegant" pinot noir could be planted. Things have been up and down for Beaujolais ever since.
Admittedly, some of the negative marks on gamay's reputation have been inflicted by Beaujolais producers themselves. For instance, there's that whole embarassing Beaujolais nouveau thing that became popular 30 years ago. Producers would rush out wines, with great fanfare, by the third Thursday in November, less than two months after harvest. Wine critic Karen MacNeil famously compared drinking Beaujolais nouveau to eating cookie dough. The resulting wine was redolent of bananas and bubble gum. It certainly was popular, at least in the early 1980s — just like Mr. T, perms, and peach schnapps. By 2001, however, over a million cases had to be destroyed or distilled due to consumer backlash. That year, one French wine critic called Beaujolais nouveau "vin de merde."
Unfortunately, Beaujolais came to be identified solely by these lousy wines. "All Beaujolais began to be seen as a beginner's wine," wrote Edward Behr, in his influential newsletter The Art of Eating back in 2004. Things have only gotten slightly better in a decade.
This is a shame, because good Beaujolais is nothing like vin de merde. As Behr writes, classic Beaujolais "achieved what some people consider to be the first job of any wine: to make you want a second glass. They were gulpable." In French, Beaujolais is often called gouleyant — which can mean "lively" or "very drinkable." As Behr notes, up until the late-20th century, Lyon was considered to be the leading city of French gastronomy. Beaujolais was the wine of Lyon's bistros, where the Lyonnais gulped it all day long, washing down the charcuterie, the coq au vin, the heavy gratins, and the offal. This classic Beaujolais is what the wine geeks have lately been rediscovering.
I don't believe there's been any better impassioned plea for the joys of Beaujolais than what Eric Asimov, wine critic for the New York Times, wrote in his column eight years ago:
If you don't love a good Beaujolais, you don't love wine. To me, that's the bottom line. You can throw out all the other reasons that people buy and drink wine, whether for status or religious observance, as an investment, as an intellectual exercise, as a social lubricant or simply to get drunk. Those all may be legitimate motives for opening a bottle. But the sheer joyous lip-smacking pleasure of drinking a good lively Beaujolais is what separates those who love wine for wine's sake from those more concerned with the addded values a bottle might bring.
Over the past eight years, the world has taken baby steps towards an acceptance of good Beaujolais, but it's been slow going. For those of us who love these wines, it's frustrating, but the reason why is clear: Beaujolais is confusing and figuring out what's "good" can be difficult.
If you see only the word Beaujolais on the bottle, it actually refers specifically to the basic, simple wines of the region. The term Beaujolais-Villages, on the other hand — which you can find on ubiquitous bottles of Louis Jadot or Georges Duboeuf — denotes that the wine is made from grapes from any of 39 villages in the northern part of the region where quality is deemed slightly higher. Neither of these designations, however, are the ones exciting wine geeks right now.
No, these days, it's all about the cru, which literally means "growth" and refers to the 10 Beaujolais villages considered to be top quality. All of these cru have what Behr calls "pretty village names": Fleurie, Juliénas, Morgon, Brouilly, Côte de Brouilly, Chénas, Moulin-à-Vent, Régnié, Chiroubles, and St-Amour. What a lovely list of French words to say, right? But here's the catch: you have to commit some of these place names to memory, because cru Beaujolais will almost never have the word Beaujolais anywhere on the bottle! It's as if the producers want to completely distance themselves from the embarassing reputation of mass-market Beaujolais.
Each of the cru is known for its own unique character: Fleurie is floral and delicate; Juliénas is rich and spicy; Morgon is big and earthy; Moulin-à-Vent is the most structured and age-worthy. (Those five are the most widely found cru in the U.S., though I have recommended bottles from Brouilly, Chénas, Régnié, and St-Amour below.)
All of these wines have two things in common. First, they're amazing values. Most of the wines I recommend cost under $25; even the splurges are just around $30. 2009 was declared the "vintage of a lifetime" in Beaujolais, but 2010 and 2011 might even be better, and almost everything I've tasted from these three vintages I would recommend. In fact, cru Beaujolais may be the best value in the wine shop these days.
The second thing these wines have in common is joyous drinkability. They're not oaky, they don't need decades in the cellar, and they're bright, vibrant, and fresh. These wines are so damn enjoyable, and pair with so many occasions and different types of food, that you forget how well-made they are.
They prove that making a truly delicious, gulpable, and affordable wine is just as much of a winemaking accomplishment — and as profoundly difficult — as making a prestigious, expensive wine. That is perhaps the lesson that cru Beaujolais teaches us: Sometimes, being good is better than being great.
Here are some recommendations for cru Beaujolais you can find locally:
MORGON
Jean-Marc Burgaud Morgon Côte du Py 2011. 13%, $16.98 at WineWorks in Marlton.
Blueberry, blue plum, blue stones…blue all around. Attractive structure and finesse.
Georges Duboeuf Morgon Jean-Ernest Descombes 2011. 13%, $14.99 in Pennsylvania, on sale for $15.99 at Wine Legend in Cherry Hill.
Dark for Beaujolais, with blackberries and a hint of sloe gin, with silky tannins, lingering finish of berries. Excellent burger wine.
JULIÉNAS
Pascal Granger Juliénas 2009. 13%, $18.99 in Pennsylvania.
Lots of mouthwatering cherry, with a tannic core that gives structure and balances the juiciness.
Georges Duboeuf Juliénas Château des Capitans 2009. 14%, $17.99 in Pennsylvania. $18.99 at Traino's Wine & Spirits in Marlton.
Licorice, smoke, plum, and baked cherry. About as brooding as Beaujolais gets.
BROUILLY
Chateau Thivin Brouilly 2009. 13%, $18.99 in Pennsylvania.
Aristocratic Beaujolais, with a balance of finesse and power.
Georges Duboeuf Brouilly 2009. 13%, $14.99 in Pennsylvania. On sale for $14.39 at Wine Legend in Cherry Hill. On sale for $11.99 at Canal's in Mt. Ephraim.
Bright, ripe berries and subtles spices. Great everyday value.
FLEURIE
Potel-Aviron Fleurie Vielles Vignes 2010. 12.5%, $19.99 in Pennsylvania.
Classic gulpable Beaujolais with lovely berry-herbal-floral notes.
OTHER CRU
Christophe Pacalet Chenas 2011. 12.5%, $19.99 in Pennsylvania SLO.
Intense berry aroma and earthy, foresty nose. Rich, meaty and muscular, with a backbone of minerality.
Potel-Aviron Moulin à Vent Vielles Vignes 2010. 12.5%, on sale for $18.39 at Wine Legend in Cherry Hill.
Big, spicy, tannic. Punches heavy for such a low-alcohol wine.
Barbet Saint Amour "Domaine des Billards" 2010. 13%, $23.79 Pennsylvania SLO.
Baking spice and black pepper on the nose. Soft, with an acidity that's almost nectarine-like, and finishes with fresh berries.