Tasted in Saint-Lager with Sébastien Dupré, 14 February 2024.

Domaine Dupré Goujon
404 Montée de l’Écluse
69220 Saint-Lager
Tel: +33 6 24 06 57 33
www.dupregoujon.fr
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The traditional alfresco tasting was once more the order of the day – the full sunshine making laptop visibility difficult – but difficult to appreciate the wines!

Sébastien on 2023:
“23 – yes it was good and we had a great yield for the whites. We like the quality of the reds too. We see good resilience to the current climate – despite the early harvests – we like the balance and have proper phenolic maturity.”

Guillaume last year on 2022:
“It’s okay – we lost a lot of our white to hail and the frost impacted the volume of the reds – 25 hl/ha was about the average – we really attacked the red harvest about the 18th September – but with super maturity though.”

Guillaume last year and Sébastien this year on 2021:
“35 hl/ha for the whites, we had lost a few parts in the bottom of the hill to the frost – but we can’t complain some of the colleagues had next to nothing. We are tasting the 2021s as we are starting to commercialise them – but we have a 2023 which about to be bottled too! It was an average volume for us – our approach is with lots of cover crops and we are persuaded that when we ask for less yield, we get more. It’s obviously a vintage of freshness where the gamay is centre-stage, also with freshness and finesse to the tannins – a vintage that has a different register.”

The wines…

Last year I saw nothing green in their 21s and this year, likewise. Excellent, almost great 21s – well done!

“Apart from the first wine, these were bottled at the end of August and we are excited to start presenting this new vintage:”

2023 Beaujolais
Bottling in the next month – bought grapes for this – they are organic grapes though from friend vignerons. ‘It’s just a shorter maceration, otherwise we make this like we make all our own domaine wines.’
Pale colour. A very modest nose of faint but still attractive red fruit. An almost juicy melon style to this flavour – well-structured but with a fine silky texture and widening much more in the finish. It needs a bit more time – maybe 6 months before drinking – but I think this could be lovely.

2021 Côte de Brouilly 631
From the domaine’s 3 terroirs
Deeper colour – there’s good depth to this nose too – darker fruit. Open, juicy, with pretty freshness and an almost chiselled shape – width and depth – almost chewy concentration in this finish – that’s a very impressive 21 – quite long too. I like this a lot!

2021 Côte de Brouilly Brulhié
An airy nose – a little more savoury but underpinned with a very pretty red fruit. Much more direct and juicy – a faint base of tannin – but not drying. Open – airy but then I’m surprised by the depth and weight of these finishing flavours – that’s a super wine – more to the side of freshness but not lacking any finishing power. Love it!

2021 Côte de Brouilly Le Pavé
More colour here. Darker, more forward fruit and a beautiful floral perfume. Very direct, chiselled, but the juicy flavour is just soooo good. There’s indeed an element of austerity but it’s glass that you just have to keep going back to – the length is super. Take the speedy ride today or wait 2-5 years for it to calm a little but I love this too!

2021 Côte de Brouilly L’Héronde
The vines below the domaine buildings. This is not yet bottled – they are currently on the 2020
Also an airy nose but more profound with darker, more concentrated fruit in support – unfortunately not the enviable florals of the last though. Larger in scale – mouth-filling – plenty of fine-grained but not drying tannin. Here is the wine with the most concentration but the least perfume today – it’s really to wait for another couple of years. Just a suggestion of the perfume that I’m looking for deep in the finish. Clean, concentrated – very impressive 21 but keep your patience – a nose short of great today!

And Le Blanc:

2021 Beaujolais Villages Blanc Clos des Muriers
Quite young vines from Blac – a plateau of 300m on argilo-calcaire. 12 months elevage, using barrels ex a good domaine in Rully.
Nicely fresh and there’s width here too – a faintly cushioned impression to the aromas partly due to the oak. Mouth-filling, good energy – fine mouth-watering energy here – the oak is visible but still modest. Quite delicious, intense and even slightly mineral in this finish. That’s a lovely finish and worth a second glass.