2019 Beaujolais Nouveau
160 wines blind-tasted in Beaujolais, 05 November 2019.
Of course, 2019 was another in the series, the trilogy, of warm years - but one with instances of frost. More drastic than the frost was a late-arriving hailstorm that on the 20th of August swept through the south of Beaujolais, cutting yields - in some cases drastically. The average losses were minus 30% - but it was Beaujolais-Villages where the most was lost, hence, the volume of ‘Nouveau de Garde’ has been significantly reduced this year.
I've previously laughed out load about the concept of Beaujolais-Villages Nouveau - Nouveau that you can cellar - so I will not bore you about that, not this time!
This year I embarked on a 160 wine gamayathon; I was certainly tired at the end, fortunately not emotional though! This year we even had 8 Nouveau of a different colour - rosé... That's up from the 3 from last year that I didn't taste(!) At this rate of growth we will have 20 in 2020!
What to expect and what's really worth buying
So three quite hot years, generally that's beneficial to the quality, but with three different results:
2017 - low yielding and probably because of that a really high quality in both the Nouveau and the Villages Nouveau
2018 - less low yielding, and that was the crux. Basic Nouveau was much more variable but the Villages Nouveau was more consistent
2019 - because of frost and hail, yields were cut, and for the consumer that has once more brought consistency and quality to the basic Nouveau category due to lower yields. I think only twice did I instantly say 'No!' and run from a particular wine. As for the Villages Nouveau - here was overwhelmingly more concentration and particularly intensity - the intensity of acidity - probably okay if you wish to cellar your Nouveau for 6-12 months, but I was looking for the balance for drinking now, and from this tasting that was relatively rare. As for the rosé wines - super, all of them - really a great source of easy, delicious drinking for the next weeks - or even longer - why not? Read More
2017 Beaujolais Nouveau
Tasted courtesy of Interbeaujolais in Villefranche, 02 November 2017
Thursday is 2017 Beaujolais Nouveau day - here are 142 wines blind-tasted for you...
For almost as long as I can remember, I always find myself a glass to drink on that day - but one is typically enough!
Whatever you might think about the waning importance of Beaujolais Nouveau, in 2016, 25.2 million bottles of the stuff were sold. Outside of France, the largest markets are Japan, followed by the United States and Canada.
But despite the contraction in sales over (at least) the last 10 years, the region still hasn't given up on this label. In an effort to improve the image of their wines, the producers have reduced their focus on crazy races to deliver bottles of dubious quality to restaurants of dubious quality, rather deciding to make the wines better - who would have thought of that? But on the other hand they have, at the same time, made your choice more complicated - today there isn't just one Beaujolais Nouveau, there are two - there is also the higher classification of Beaujolais Villages Nouveau!
Just so that you don't have to (but feel free!), I tasted through 142 Nouveaux on the 2nd of November - 77 Beaujolais Nouveau (BJN) and 65 Beaujolais Villages Nouveau (BJVN). From the large first group of BJN, I picked out for you 9 absolutely delicious wines, and from the BJVNs I picked out 15 - but that was harder work, and here there is an additional complication: By and large the BJVN are more concentrated, more tannic and generally not for drinking on Thursday - you should probably wait at least 12 months for most of them to start drinking well! This rather begs the question, what are they for then? Discussing a with a fellow taster - writing for Bettane & Desseauve - it seems that this question, whilst entirely reasonable to me, is a very Anglo-Saxon question!
The French, it seems, don't just drink BJN (or BJVN!) on the third Thursday in November. They visit a shop, select a BJN (or BJVN!), they buy a case, they drink one or two bottles on the third Thursday of November and then drink the rest over the next 12 months - until it's time to start all over again. It seems, that in French eyes (at least) that drinking this wine on only one day per year, is particularly Anglo-Saxon - so whilst we might struggle with the concept (or utility) of a BJN (or BJVN!) de garde - that's just our problem!
2017 with its warm and friendly vintage conditions - one hailstorm excepted - has provided wine of delicious ripeness and good character. The quality is generally high with many more 'hits' than 'misses' - nearly 20% I recommend highly, but 10% of the wines I wouldn't want to take a second glass...
Anyway, all the following wines were tasted blind, I later mated the list of names my numbered tasting-notes, picking out those that I could highly recommend. The highly recommended wines follow directly. My favourite wine of the whole tasting being the wine (the BJVN wine!) of Maison Trenel - highlighted in that list.
9 selected Beaujolais Nouveaux, from 77 wines tasted:
Château de L'Eclair, L 16401
Nose is super. Bright fresh delicious – this is really excellent - can it be so easy?!
Duboeuf Georges
Big, bright delicious nose. Lots of flavour, a little gas, but very tasty – yes! A great finish too.
Mommessin
Deep, mineral, dark fruit – nice. Again gas. Layers of flavour – great flavour here. Super!
Paris Christophe
This is a deep and attractive nose. Supple, nice texture, great finishing flavour too!
Perroud Robert, Nature
A heavy bottle. Very deep. Direct, linear, only slowly giving up its melting flavours. Superior wine here with a fine finish – yes!
Fellot Emmanuel, Vieilles Vignes
A concentrated nose of depth. Supple, great weight but fresh too. Mouth-watering flavour – more tannin than the last. A great finish – Yes!
Château de la Valette - Crespin Jean Pierre
Depth but slightly tight nose. Fresh, lovely mid-palate energy – hmm – not many like this. Yes!
Oedoria, Coeur D'Automne
Hmm – nice – open, complex and attractive nose. Lots of distinction in the flavour here – complex and delicious.
Olivier Coquard, Nature
Tight nose. Open and attractive, complex, fresh palate. Lots to find here – this is super!
15 selected Beaujolais Villages Nouveaux, from 66 wines tasted:
Collin Bourisset, Cuvée à la Con
Modest depth but an attractive width of dark and fresh fruit. Good volume, layered fresh fruit. Late arriving sucrosity and fine intensity. A lovely finish. Excellent!
de Vermont Yannick
Deep, complex, fresh – interesting! Volume, complexity - ooh – this is good! Excellent!
Gelin Gilles, Le Vin des Copains
A tight-ish but highly attractive nose of pure dark fruit. Lots of structure and some astringence of tannin. This is a wine to wait at least a year for but it is simply super wine.
Domaine Joncy, La Trad'Nature
Red wax topped. Wide and quite floral with an easy fruit I the middle. On the plate the texture is very silky, the flavours are quite individual but very floral and enticing. Delicious despite the young impression. Super!
Tête Louis
Nice, quite open and with good depth. In the mouth, plenty of dimension and complexity – this is very fine and a little saline too.
Domaine de la Milleranche - Corsin J et Roussot S, Anima Vinum
An inky-deep nose. Wide, fresh some decent intensity here. Layers of finishing flavour – very young finishing flavour! To wait for but with super material and more than a touch of finishing tannin
Lacondemine Jérôme, Coeur de raisin
Ooh – deep, floral – very lovely! Fresh, faintly mineral, lots of complexity. Great but painfully young wine. Superb
Jambon Dominique
A wide and fresh nose – highly attractive. Plenty of fresh volume. Slowly the waves of flavour wash over the palate. Really a great finish!
Lafont Jean Marc, Cuvée Centenaire
Also inky-deep but something very attractive and high-toned escapes the glass too. Supple, über-concentrated, layered flavour. Wait 3-5 years – no joke. Super wine!
Dumas Pierre André, Cuvée vinifiée par Aurélie Durnerin
Deep colour. Super concentrated nose with some modest high-tones escaping – attractive. Too much gas but so much energy and complexity. Super wine, delicious wine…
Trenel
Ooh a very lovely floral top note here – quite distinctive. Fresh, vigorous and delicious. There is depth and great interest for me here – this could be the best wine of the day…
Ferraud P et Fils
A tighter nose but of some saline interest. Really a lot of volume here, but the mouth-watering flavour cuts through the young tannin. Fine fresh fruit – excellent!
Château de la Grand'Grange, Vieilles Vignes
Nice fresh fruit on this nose – dark fruit – lovely. Supple, concentrated, layered flavour. Long. Super wine – nearly as good as #53…
Domaine de Colette - Gauthier Jacky
Plenty of volume and fresh aromatic complexity. Big, depth of flavour. Nice texture. Waves of fine finishing flavour. Another top wine…
Chatelus Pascal
Bottle 1 corked - the only one of the tasting. Here bottle 2. Deep nose that's tight above, more open below. Supple and concentrated. Layers of great flavour – this is excellent…
Click here to see all the remaining notes!
5. Beaujolais – that you should buy!
My list is far from exhaustive, and of-course it reflects my palate and the visits and blind tastings that I’ve made so far. I’m looking for real fruit, not artificial carbonic fruit! But here you will find some really great wines, wines priced from too low to ambitious for the… Read More
2023 Beaujolais Nouveau – steady as she goes!
So - how important is Beaujolais Nouveau today?
It may surprise you to learn that in 2022, nearly a quarter of all Beaujolais' 13,500 hectares of production, ended up in bottles that were labelled Nouveau.
That was 16,500,000 bottles of Nouveau - and that's a lot - it's equivalent to 85% of all the production of the Burgundy region from Chablis to the 'border' with Beaujolais!
France takes 60% of the bottles but the classic markets of Japan, the US and the UK, together, still bought more than 4 million bottles last year.
That being the case, it's still worth trying to find some good ones!
The 2023 vintage:
The vine-growth in 2023 started in the 'new classic' style - ie quite early and in good conditions due to a mild start to the year. This year, there was hardly any worry about frost and there followed practically ideal conditions for flowering. This early debut of growth, followed by the summer heat, ensured that it was another earlier harvesting year - from about the 1st September - so, versus 2021, we certainly had the potential for nearly an extra month of elevage before any Nouveau bottling got underway - but how, exactly, did the post-flowering year go?
In 2023, the Beaujolais vigneron(ne)s liked to talk about the weather; there's nothing unusual about 'farmers' talking about the weather, right? Of course not! But, as we approached the harvest, there was a clear focus to most of these conversations - and that focus was the rain - or rather the lack of rain.
The crus in the north got a couple of decent rainfalls in July/August but to the south not - here it stayed dry from mid-June right up to the harvest - in fact the further south you went in Beaujolais, the drier it got, reducing the berry size and therefore the yields - unsurprisingly, it was the young vines that particularly suffered in these conditions. The producers point to the counter-balance of the daytime heat with cooler nights - 'so the wines have a nice aromatic balance - not too warm!'
Proportionately, Beaujolais Nouveau is made in higher quantities from vines in the appellations of Beaujolais and Beaujolais Villages as these labels are a little less attractive to Beaujolais buyers than those wines labelled in the name of 'the crus' - such as Fleurie or Saint Amour. So it is the wines from the south, whose volumes were most severely limited by the summer drought, who provide the bulk of the juice for these Nouveaux - it was an important point for this tasting.
The best wines...
In the the heartland of Beaujolais Nouveau production - ie the south of Beaujolais - the, drought-related, brake on the potential harvest volume has clearly been of benefit for anyone with an interest in drinking this stuff. That's because any excess volume usually translates into significant quality variation between those who cropped at the maximum and those who were more modest.
2023's more modest harvest volumes have brought some consistency to the wines - a little like in 2022. The Beaujolais Nouveaux are less regular than the Beaujolais Villages Nouveaux but as in most years the latter category come with not just more depth of flavour - they come with more structure too - and in many cases I'd be looking to keep, and drink, the villages over a longer period than the campaign for Nouveau might suggest.
I have noted a few more great wines (below) than in 2022 but overall, it's quite a similar number for 97 wines tasted this year.
97 wines tasted - is that a lot? There are probably more like 200-250 different bottlings and/or cuvée names in this category - and good luck to you if you can find some of them in your local markets. I really struggle in Switzerland - and the anonymous (single!) bottling of Switzerland's Coop supermarket is, historically, an awful one - but I'll try it again this year - hopefully without needing to pour (more than!) half of the bottle away!
Good hunting!
All the wines were tasted and selected blind. It was only after the tasting that I got a copy of the spreadsheet with the names to match to the numbered bottles:
5 Great wines for their labels
One more than last year:
Jean Loron, Beaujolais Nouveau Rosé
Agamy, Domaine de Solémy Beaujolais Nouveau
Manoir du Carra Famille Sambardier, Dame Nature Beaujolais Villages
Famille Descombe, Granite Beaujolais Villages
Richard Rottiers Beaujolais Villages
10 Excellent Wines - Beaujolais Nouveau
Two less than in 2022:
Jean Loron, Rift 69
Romy, Le Mouflet
Georges Duboeuf
Jean-Yves Sonnery Domaine de Baluce
Domaine des Prévelières
Domaine Pierre André Dumas
Aurélie et Fabien Romany
Domaine des Prévelières, Border'Wine
Baptiste Aufranc
Célia et David Large, Zombi
9 Excellent Wines - Beaujolais Villages Nouveau
Just one more than in 2022:
Domaine Gaget, Vinum Memoria
Georges Duboeuf
Domaine de la Madone Bérerd Père et Fils
Nicolas Boudeau
Domaine des Terres Vivantes, La Lutine
Cave Vignerons de Bel Air, Natural
Château de Corcelles
Domaine Desprès
Julien Aucagne
Click on 'Read More...' below to see the full notes for the (almost) 100 wines in the order that they were (blind) tasted on Halloween 2023:
Read More
Robert Perroud – 2020
Tasted with Robert Perroud in his hidden valley of Les Balloquets, under Mont Brouilly, 24 February 2022. Domaine Robert Perroud Les Balloquets 69460 Odenas Tel: +33 4 74 04 35 63 www.robert-perroud.com More reports with Domaine Robert Perroud Robert on 2021: “In 2021 I wasn’t hailed or frosted – and… Read More
2017 Beaujolais Blanc
And the winners were… All blind-tasted in Villefranche-sur-Saône, 22 March 2019. The Summary: 61 wines tasted blind, though tasted in the order 1) Beaujolais Blanc and then 2) Beaujolais Villages Blanc – it was by pure chance that my picks were equally split between each… Read More
2016+2015(+) Almost 50 Saint Amours – tasted blind…
48 wines, tucked up in their little jackets and tasted blind on 06 July 2017 in Villefranche… Together with Julienas, St.Amour is the most northerly of the Beaujolais Crus – tread a few metres more to the north and you are in the Mâconnais. I chose this tasting… Read More
Bourgogne Rosés for summer 2016 – Pinot vs Gamay
There were two tastings in 3 days – 06+08 June 2016 – the first in Beaune and the second in Villefranche (Beaujolais). Who would come out on top – northern Burgundy or southern Burgndy? I looked at the current commercial vintage, which of-course largely means 2015 – though there are… Read More
2014 Blind Beaujolais Tasting
All tasted blind at ‘Interbeaujolais’ in Villefranche 25, 26 and 27 April 206. Virtually all the wines tasted here are from the 2014 vintage – as requested – but a few 2013s seemed to creep into the mix too. Whilst all were tasted blind, the ‘cru’ was known… Read More