Beaujolais

The leading figure in Beaujolais is Georges DuBoeuf, who has probably done more to attract attention to Beaujolais over the last 50 years than anyone else. He created and promoted the commercialisation of Beaujolais Nouveau, but also produces serious Cru wine. I met him once and he told me, with a chauvinism only a charming, elderly Frenchman could get away with: "Beaujolais is a woman you flirt with, maybe spend a night with, and then forget about. Burgundy is a woman you fall in love with for the rest of your life but can never afford to marry. Bordeaux is a woman you marry and then divorce." 

Having spent a weekend in Beaujolais I have to disagree with Georges: these are wines I will come back to. Probably the most underappreciated and least understood of all of France's wine regions, Beaujolais is known for simple, fruity, inexpensive wine, most notoriously in the once ubiquitous Beaujolais Nouveau. My recent trip to Beaujolais uncovered a very different side to the region: a scenic, sometimes dramatic, and isolated area sheltering hilltop villages little changed over the years. Dirt tracks lead to dusty tasting rooms and weathered winemakers shyly pouring world-class wines. Quality may vary, but when Beaujolais is good it's as distinctive and memorable as any of France's best wines - and much more affordable.

view from Chiroubles

where is it?

In its rare moments of pretension, Beaujolais calls itself "southern Burgundy" to associate itself with its more illustrious neighbour. Although administratively within Burgundy, Beaujolais couldn't be much more different. The soil is sandy and rocky, dominated by granite. There are vast plains churning out basic Beaujolais, rising to steep, high undulating hills for the quality wines. It's a beautiful region to visit, even if there is little going on: this is an area time has little touched.

Chapelle de la Madone, Fleurie, looks down on hillside vines

the grape

98% of Beaujolais is planted with Gamay, an easy to grow grape that produces fruity, immediate, purple-coloured wine. The vines are planted using the gobelet system - small, stubby vines reaching upwards into a outstretched claw. This allows dense plantings - between 9 and 13,000 vines per hectare which is some of the densest plantings in the world - to encourage high yields. Much maligned, Gamay is always fun but occasionally quite serious.

gobelet vines and granite soils

the appellations

winery inside the church at Juliénas

There are three tiers to Beaujolais. Around 50% of production is the basic Beaujolais AC, which is cheap, fruity, and forgettable. As the vineyards rise from the flat plains, the grapes qualify for Beaujolais-Villages, a significant step up in quality which accounts for 25% of production. The greatest wines come from the ten Crus, in the midst of dramatically situated vineyards. Here, the cheerful fruitiness of Gamay is accompanied by an unexpected structure, concentration, and intensity. Despite being close to each other, each Cru has a distinct profile, from tannic Moulin-à-Vent, floral Fleurie, spicy Juliénas, to ageworthy Morgon. These wines are fruity enough to be drunk young and on their own, but substantial enough to be aged and drunk with hearty, meaty dishes. 

From the 1960s until at least the 1990s, Beaujolais was known for Beaujolais Nouveau, a wine almost straight from the barrel for immediate consumption. The novelty of drinking wine that's only just been fermented created a fashion which led to it being responsible for over 60% of Beaujolais sales in the late 1980s. Unfortunately, Nouveau has dominated perceptions of Beaujolais and it's difficult to convince consumers that the region is capable of more than these simple, fruity wines. Nouveau is still big in Japan. 

the wines

I had a lot of fun tasting Beaujolais over the course of just a couple of days, sampling wines straight from the cask or drinking it with lamb, chicken, salads, and on its own. This is an extremely versatile wine, as evidenced by two informal visits to producers in the Fleurie Cru. Unlike Burgundy, wineries are open to public visits, though you might have to interpret a few wayward signposts to find what you're looking for. 

Domaine de la Madone, Fleurie
Located on the top of a steep hillside besides a small chapel, Jean-Marc Dupres makes wines solely within the Fleurie appellation. There is quite a range, including a fresh, floral, aromatic Viognier (€9; ✪✪✪✪), the only white grape planted in Fleurie. Of the traditional styles of Beaujolais, the Cuvée Speciale (€12.80; ✪✪✪✪✪) from old vines was most noteworthy: fruity, spicy, and intense. Dupres also makes a couple of wines using oak-ageing, also from old vines: the Prestige (€14.50; ✪✪✪✪✪) is aged in old oak barrels, giving it a round, smooth complexity, while the 1889 (€27; ✪✪✪✪✪), made partly from vines planted that year, sees a prolonged 25-day maceration (the norm in Beaujolais is 10-14 days), with two years in new oak, marrying the fruity profile of Gamay with cocoa, chocolate, and coffee from the oak.

Clos de la Roillette, Fleurie
At the bottom of a dirt track outside the village of Fleurie, we were hosted by winemaker Alain Coudert's shy, softly-spoken son in a cellar that probably hadn't been cleaned in several decades. Once again, the most interesting wines were from old vines, this time planted in the 1930s. The Cuvée Tardive (c.€15; ✪✪✪✪✪) was attractive, complex, and, with gripping tannins and high acidity, ageworthy. Likewise with the Griffe de Marquis, which I tasted from the 2013, 2012, and 2007 vintages. The Marque Déposée 2007 (✪✪✪✪✪✪) was a magnificent example of how Beaujolais can defy preconceptions: a gamey, meaty, animal nose, yet remarkably fresh on the palate with high acidity and a long, fresh, spicy finish.

Where else in the world can you leave a tasting room with a bottle of quality wine that you can drink later that evening or age for a few years - and for just €7.20, as we did with Clos de la Roilette's Brouilly (✪✪✪✪)? I know of no other region where such outstanding wines retail at such affordable prices.

At its best, Beaujolais is unassuming rather than simple. Too unassuming perhaps: Beaujolais needs to assert its quality more confidently to change people's perceptions of the wines. It could do with developing a proper tourist infrastructure, to help visitors explore this beautiful region - even at the cost of opening up its timeless nature to the twenty-first century. As it is, enjoy it while it's still vastly underappreciated.