Tasted in Lantignié with Raphaël Chopin, 14 February 2024.
Raphaël Chopin
La Savoye
69430 Lantignié
Tel: +33 6 22 08 59 09
Raphäel’s Instagram
www.domaine-raphael-chopin.fr
More reports with Domaine Raphaël Chopin
This year there are some new recruits at the domaine – I first met the cats and the chickens – as usual – but this year there are the pigs too – they are very effective in removing the weeds around the vines – out of the growing season, of course!
Raphäel on 2023:
“23 was really good. I had 45 hl/ha, just a little hail in Regnie and Beaujeu – 80% loss in a small part of Beaujolais Blanc.”
Raphäel on 2022:
“2022 was my third year of organics, so maybe I can use that as an excuse for 32 hl/ha – all that ploughing and removal of surface roots! I started harvesting on the 25th August and finished on the 02nd of September. 11.9° was the lowest – for the white – but Funambule was 13.2° – It’s a vintage where we don’t note the level of the alcohol. I’m very happy with them – no frost, no hail and the dryness wasn’t so bad – despite some areas of young vines. The only stress was during the fermentations but after the recent warm years, I cool to about 18°C so that the fermentations don’t start too quickly.”
The wines…
Always a pleasure to taste here – delicious wines and the 2022 Gaïa is another in a long line of great vintages for this wine.
2022 Beaujolais-Lantignié La Savoye
Hmm – a lovely width of pretty red fruit – fine and a little airy. Hmm, there’s depth and some power to this flavour with a small grain of tannin. The finish is fine and long. That’s a beautiful wine but wait 2 years.
2022 Regnié La Ronze
A lighter shade of red. A more vertical and floral nose – this has much finesse. Panoramic width and a fine energy – the tannin faintly drying but here micro-grained. Lovely finishing and quite floral too. That’s a lovely wine and certainly an excellent Regnié
2022 Morgon Les Charmes
Lots of finesse – a nose of airy purity – it’s really inviting. Fuller in the mouth but not overly structural. Slightly round, but completely delicious – would I guess Morgon blind – probably not – but what a completely delicious wine!
2022 Morgon Archambault
These are the old vines of La Ronze – about 80-years-old.
A rounder nose with some creamy oak notes. Rounder and more supple – the oak is just a little more than background – I’d be waiting 5 years for this – but – the velour of this texture and the depth of this flavour mark this out as excellent wine. Be patient!
Gamaret 70%, gamay for the rest. To be bottled after 18 months, so in the Springtime.
Hmm- that’s a beautifully floral aroma – are we in Chambolle? The flavours are round and full of concentration with lots of floral complexity. This is usually a great wine – even in the context of the whole of Beaujolais – today it’s certainly great!
Le White:
2022 Beaujolais Blanc
Really wide and fine aromas of more mirabelle fruit – like a nice clean crémant – than the agrumes of chardonnay – but it’s very inviting. Wide, mineral, and quite juicy. There’s a minerality here but without the rigour of many BJB – in fact, that’s a brilliant BJB!