(TEL) Why Everyone Has Been Buying Beaujolais This Year –

[AKR]

Why Everyone Has Been Buying Beaujolais This Year – And the Best Bottles to Stock Up on
2020-09-11 10:32:22.339 GMT


By Victoria Moore, Wine correspondent

(Telegraph) -- Beaujolais has been unexpectedly popular this year. The region
is a bucolic part of France, an area of rolling hills and woodland close to
the city of Lyon.

The red wines, made from the gamay grape, are well-known for their sappy and
refreshing qualities. But it’s a long time since they were fashionable in the
mainstream, although certain Beaujolais growers are very keenly followed by a
small group of hardcore wine enthusiasts.

And yet. In May, exports to the UK were up 120 per cent by volume and 102 per
cent by value year on year. Was the hike nothing more than a logistics bulge
caused by uneven importing across a difficult season?

It doesn’t look like it: Majestic reports “strong” demand for beaujolais
through late spring and early summer, with sales up more than 70 per cent.
Waitrose.com says that searches for beaujolais were up 158 per cent on last
year (with sales up 19 per cent) and there are anecdotal reports from puzzled
independents who say beaujolais has really been shifting.

What’s been going on? No one seems to know. The best guess is that a
combination of lockdown and warm sunshine – which always drives rosé sales –
inspired people to shop for a brisk red that they could stick in the fridge.
“We saw a lot of customers choosing to chill it,” says a spokesman for
Majestic.

Whatever, it was a good move. The human desire for novelty sometimes means we
forget to update our views of traditional wine regions. Unusual grape
varieties, wine in different colours through shades of pink to orange and
blue, novel packaging, wine from surprising places – all of these things grab
our attention. Beaujolais has been around for a long time but that doesn’t
mean it’s the same as it ever was. It had a (long) moment during the 1970s and
1980s, the heyday of “beaujolais nouveau” and the annual race to bring the
first bottles of fierce young wine across the Channel on the third Thursday in
November. Then Beaujolais went into recovery from a publicity campaign that
had so successfully promoted its worst wines that everyone forgot about the
good ones. The comeback has been quiet and, because it has been based in the
vineyards, slow.

But it turns out that now is a superb time to be drinking beaujolais.
“Beaujolais is still reasonably cheap. Also it’s a true terroir wine, with
small properties and lots of new-generation winemakers,” says Anne-Victoire
Monrozier whose family has owned Château des Moriers , a producer of fleurie
and moulin à vent, since 1850. Monrozier is an entrepreneur and a
communicator, a woman with vitality, charisma and a capacity to keep pace with
consumption trends, getting wines in front of new (and younger) people. She
has put her family’s wine into bag-in-box (I’ve just bought some for a camping
trip – see right); she’s launched fleurie in a can, and she also sells wine
under the Miss Vicky brand.

As she says, backing up these innovations is a region that has a serious
offer: distinctive wines, small growers and well-farmed land. Over the last
decade or so, respected names from pinot noir-producing Burgundy – the likes
of Thibault Liger-Belair and Frédéric Lafarge – have bought land in
Beaujolais, in part because they can afford it, but also because they believe
in the potential to make serious wine here.

A new generation of local winemakers have also built on the work of famous
terroir-first producers such as Foillard, Thevenet and Lapierre. When it comes
to terroir, the first stepping stones are the crus. Beaujolais’ crus – the
villages allowed to make wine under their own names – have always captured my
imagination. There are 10 of them. Each produces wine with a properly
distinctive personality, and you can quite quickly get to know and appreciate
them all.

“We don’t just make beaujolais, we make moulin à vent – and we want to make
the best moulin à vent we can,” as Edouard Parinet said last time I tasted
with him. Parinet’s family are from Beaujolais but only became wine producers
in 2009 when they bought Château du Moulin-à-Vent (in the village of the same
name). They approached the project with a fine attention to detail and the
level of respect for site that you find on the Côte d’Or. The wines are
excellent, a real gold standard for what the region as a whole has to offer,
as well as the level of intensity and power that moulin à vent, in particular,
can produce (and they’re available through stannarywine.com ).

If some think of beaujolais as a summer red, I like it in the autumn when a
light, chilled red can replace a white wine; also in the winter when its sap
and verve resonates with the frost outside but is also a reminder that spring
will come. So now is the time to explore the crus. Wines from Morgon, the
second largest, have power and firmness; they feel serious and unfrivolous.
Fleurie, as its name suggests, often has a floral aroma, like dried violet and
rose petals, and sometimes also a graphite-like scent. Chiroubles is the
highest and finest. I think it was Andrew Jefford who once wrote that its
wines were like the song of a lark: high-pitched and clear-cut. I always think
of that.

Brouilly is bright, fragrant and has a fruity ease. If you already know the
crus, now is a good time to try Beaujolais’ best-kept secret: its white wine,
made from chardonnay. Majestic recently bought a parcel and says the wine is
“going down a storm” with its customers. It’s called Château de Pizay
Beaujolais Blanc and the flavours are typically taut and perky for a
chardonnay, with less of the warmth and richness that you often encounter and
more of a ping.

Wines of the week

Domaine Chevalier Métrat Côte de Brouilly Les Grillés 2018

Beaujolais, France (13%, Lea & Sandeman £12.95/14.50 mixed case/single bottle
price)

This ripe and yet tantalisingly tangy brouilly remains one of the best wines
I’ve tasted all summer. It’s from a family domaine, all juicy redcurrants and
iron. Best served slightly chilled, say with herby roast chicken, or cold
roasted pork with fennel.

Château des Moriers Fleurs des Champs Fleurie 2018

Beaujolais, France 
12.5%, bibwine.co.uk , bag in box, £36.50 for 2.25l)

The BIB Wine Company has been so successful that many of its wines are now
reserved for subscribers. Luckily it has just got in a new batch that anyone
can buy and this zippy, clean-edged fleurie is one of them. Fragrant and
joyful, I drank it with parsley, fresh tomato, anchovy and olive spaghetti. So
good.

Pardon & Fils Les Mouilles Juliénas 2019

Beaujolais, France (13.5%, Majestic , £10.99/12.99 mix six/single bottle
price)

Juliénas is the second most northerly of the 10 Beaujolais crus, sandwiched
between Saint Amour (to the north) and Chiroubles (to the south). Juliénas can
often be sturdier than some of the other crus. This one is sleek, with a
smooth finesse.

[Comte Flaneur]

I am at ground zero with Beaujolais and need educating, so thanks for posting this Arv.

I put it down to scarring effects of being exposed to Beaujolais Nouveau by my ex boss in London each November in the 1980s, which reinforced my ‘all red wine is plonk’ preconceptions at the time.

[Blanquito]

I’ve bought more Beaujolais in 2020 than any other red wine. Maybe more than the rest (of red) combined. I didn’t realize I was such a sheep, following the herd.

[OrlandoRobert]

You boys are sheeple!

I’ve been drinking Beaujolais and Chinon as part of my weekly stable since as long as I can remember. They tend to be more food friendly than Bordeaux, and the entry point is generally much lower. And if you know what to look for, these are true quality wines with some absolutely vin du gardes.

This. Is. Not. Beaujolais Nouveau.

Beaujolais musts:

Lapierre Morgon
Thivin Cotes de Brouilly
Clos de la Roilette Fleurie Cuvee Tardive
Foillard
Bouland
Vissoux
Metras - careful, has a very natural wine feel

Beaujolais that can rock your world:

Foillard 3.14
Metras l’Ultime
Bouland Delys cuvee
Lapierre Cuvee Lapierre
Clos do la Roillete Griffe du Marquis

Thank me later.

[Ianjaig]

I'm just starting to get into Beaujolais and begin my education in this area having been (surprisingly) impressed by the quality/value of some that I've tried recently.

Morgon sounds like a sub region I might like as they are described as being more bold and full bodied than others. I've picked some up from this area to try over the coming weeks.

Thanks for the other recommendations.

[Blanquito]

The eye-opening bojo for me was a 10 year old Lapierre Morgon.

[Ianjaig]

Is that the "Marcel Lapierre" Morgon? Reason I ask is that a local stockist has it available (on allocation). Its a 19 though, so assume it would need laying down.

The Morgon I have, but not yet tried, is a Domaine de Bel Air Morgon Les Charmes 2018.

[Musigny 151]

I understand that people like Beaujolais. At its best, it is easy to drink, has crunchy bright fruit and matches any number of dishes. It is also a category I dislike intensely. It has very little complexity and almost nothing to sustain interest after the first gulp. I can drink Cola if I want something that simple, and Coke not Pepsi is probably more complex

Not just me who thinks it. Read what Philip the Bold said when he banned gamay from Burgundy.

He declared Gamay “foul” and “harmful”, and in a royal decree denounced the “tres mauvais et tres desloyaus plant nomme gamay”, translated as, “the very evil and very disloyal plant called gamay”. Philip thus forbade the cultivation of Gamay in Burgundy and banished it from the Kingdom. Sometime towards the end of the fourteenth century.

[AKR]

All of the above may be well true, but for my tastes, Bojo is quite different than the rest of the wines I have which tend to be big, and long agers. Plus it's so hot out there that reds that drink well in the heat (i.e. chilled) fit particularly well out west.

There is plenty of joy in simple village (non cru level) too. Foillard's villages is great. I like Cambion too (some relation to one of the gang of 4 I think). I don't particularly want bojo that is supposed to be squirreled away a decade.

But I doubt I have any more than 4-6 of any bojo in total at any time, maybe a touch more when garagiste shipments come in, once a year or so. I just buy them and drink them, uncomplicated!

[OrlandoRobert]

Sigh..... Snob.

I’m pretty sure Philip the Bold was the scion of multi-generational inbreeding. I also think they burned witches back then, too.

I’ll slip some 3.14 into a line-up some day....

[Musigny 151]

Robert, of course I am a bloody snob. I figured you knew that.

But if I have money for wine, I can think of no good reason to waste it on Beaujolais, when I can drink Cru Bourgeois Bordeaux.

[Comte Flaneur]

However

My interest is sufficiently piqued to go for a (UK) Wine Society selection

In the UK as Arv’s article intimates, we are seeing a pivot towards Beaujolais - which, it would be easy to surmise is a swelling backlash against the supermarket commoditised swill most Brits have hitherto swallowed hook line and sinker but are perhaps beginning to push back against.

[jckba]

Just picked up 6 btls of the recently released 2019 Burlotto Pelaverga from Rye Brook Wines and the reason why I am sticking this in this thread is that I find that these drink like an Italian version of a Cru Bojo, meaning just with a little more acidity.

[AKR]

Robert, of course I am a bloody snob. I figured you knew that.

But if I have money for wine, I can think of no good reason to waste it on Beaujolais, when I can drink Cru Bourgeois Bordeaux.

It seems me to now that that cru Bojo costs more than cru bourgeois Bdx....but I don't think consider this a money issue.

This is like shellfish/fish vs beef/lamb - although all protein they are different.

[OrlandoRobert]

Yes AKR, they scratch different itches. I much prefer Bojo for more lighter meals, like grilled chicken, salmon, pork. Flip to Bordeaux for my meats, pizzas, etc. Popped a late night Lanessan yesterday just for the heck of it, to enjoy solo. And in that context, I definitely prefer Bordeaux. I do not agree with your pricing comment, Bojo is still a far better value, and more high quality ones in that price bracket, IMHO.

[Blanquito]

I am a bordeaux man, thorough and thorough. Even with my well-chronicled doubts about many modern takes on wine in Bordeaux and elsewhere, I still have large holdings of recent vintages from Aquitaine and I am very glad I do.

What changed for me wasn’t going off claret, but was realizing (very late to the game) how good cru Beaujolais can be. And different. And keenly priced (for now). Lapierre, Thivin, and Foillard have each really impressed and I have some Roilette waiting for cooler weather. Diversity is the spice of life!

[AKR]

Yes AKR, they scratch different itches. I much prefer Bojo for more lighter meals, like grilled chicken, salmon, pork. Flip to Bordeaux for my meats, pizzas, etc. Popped a late night Lanessan yesterday just for the heck of it, to enjoy solo. And in that context, I definitely prefer Bordeaux. I do not agree with your pricing comment, Bojo is still a far better value, and more high quality ones in that price bracket, IMHO.

Well I'm comparing cru bojo which may top around $35-40 except for a few outliers vs. cru bourgeoise (whether or not that's a reasonable comp) which mostly top out at $30ish except for maybe Phelan Segur / Haut Marbuzet / Chasse Spleen / Poujeaux. (And I can't even remember if that handful are formally in the C-B anymore). The more typical cru bourgeois I'd think of would be Cambon Le Pelouse etc. at $20.

I'm totally fine with the villages level bojo too. One pro trick: chill the glasses along with the wine!

[OrlandoRobert]

The other beauty of Beaujolais is that so many of them taste wonderful all baby fresh and within the first years of release, whereas many Cru Bordeaux really do need more time. Now if I had dozens and dozens of cases of 2000 Cru Bdx, perhaps I’d lean more the other way!

It’s hard to find a Bordeaux under $30 that matches a Thivin or a Clos de la Roilette. Lanessan is one of those few, but it has now flipped to the dark side, so is DTM. Cambon la Pelouse has as well.

That’s the other thing, the dark has not invadeD Beaujolais.