The fifth of my quintet of 2016 Vintage Burgundy reports is now online for subscribers, namely Beaujolais 2016.

I usually feel inadequate when I hear of 100s of domaines, 1,000s of notes plus maybe 100,000 words delivered in other places, but this time I forced myself to do a little benchmarking: So, so far, my October to February reports covering the 2016 vintage are arranged; Côte d’Or Whites, Côte d’Or Reds, the ‘Grand Maisons,’ Chablis and Beaujolais – amounting to 210 domaines and 2,440 wines – over 180,000 words – there were only 90k words in my book!

I feel better already!

Whilst the core of my Beaujolais report remains those domaines that I’ve slowly discovered through blind tasting, this time I decided to include alternative facets of the market for Beaujolais – there are 9 cave co-operatives and I managed to visit 7 of them. On the opposite side of the market I decided to visit some of the more successful ‘natural’ winemakers; Foillard, Sunier, Thillardon, Dutraive and Lapierre – among others – there is no single truth to good wine!

I hope that you will enjoy. From now until the harvest, my reports will return to the freestyle approach.