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Beaujolais

Beaujolais can mean different things to different people. To some, it conjures up images of gallon after gallon of gluggable, fruity wine, sometimes pretty, sometimes floral, sometimes labelled as Beaujolais Nouveau. Those that know these wines are likely to also be aware of the quality-highs the region also offers with its ten cru villages, such as Morgon and Fleurie, wines of freshness and light, which translate their terroir and can develop considerably with age, often allegedly becoming rather more Pinot-like as they do so. Alternatively, there are some who dismiss the region out of hand, their experience blighted by the use of questionable yeast cultures and cuvées that taste more of bananas than wine, of early releases that taste of little other than acid and green, or of "vin de merde" to quote François Mauss, writing of the disastrous 2001 vintage in Lyon Mag (a description that led to legal action against him, as it happens). These are both potential faces of the Beaujolais coin; which side you see depends on your tasting history, your personal experience of the region and its wines, and perhaps on just how open-minded you are prepared to be.

My first personal experience of Beaujolais was as a student, when I picked up a few bottles of a recommended Beaujolais Nouveau (I am afraid I forget the details, including producer and vintage) and then after drinking the first tucked the rest away in my cellar, drinking one every month or so. Each bottle was better than that which had preceded it, until I finshed the last one the following Easter, five or six months after the nouveau release (which is always the third Thursday in November). This experience of very short-term cellaring was my first realisation that many Beaujolais myths - such as the maxim of drink youngest available, a frequently touted rule especially where nouveau is concerned - are false.

A more direct experience with the wines came when I visited the region a few years later, and travelling on a budget I erected my tent in a small campsite just outside Fleurie, one of the region's ten cru villages, not at all far from the famed windmill after which the neighbouring cru appellation of Moulin à Vent is named (since the picture on the left was taken, in 1997, the building has been restored, including new sails). The campsite was rather lacking in facilities, and sadly its proprietor was similarly lacking in good humour, as most of our interactions seemed to centre around some complaint he might have concerning me, my tent or my car. Fortunately he was not typical of the little town's inhabitants, as the hostess at the tiniest restaurant in town - I am afraid I forget the name again - was a delight, and I enjoyed a number of good meals and fine bottles there. Some were so delicious, in fact, that I felt moved to track down the domaine in question to see if I could buy any more. After a long afternoon of hunting, armed with a few clues provided by the restaranteur, I located the domaine, only to be waved away in a peremptory fashion, the words reaching my ears so terse and seemingly insulted at my appearance (and no, it wasn't lunchtime) that I immediately considered the possibility that the proprietors of the domaine and the campsite were related. I left empty-handed, and so ended, for a while at least, my affair with Beaujolais.

Since that day I have since expanded my knowledge of this region of Burgundy and have increasingly learnt to ignore those aforementioned tradiitional Beaujoalis maxims. Beaujolais does not have to taste of bubblegum and bananas, and can in fact yield delicious wines, rich in believable rather than confected fruit character, or sometimes with a deeper, more savoury bent. The wines can age, not just a few months as I describe above but for years, and many wines from the cru villages will drink well at 5-10 years, and some will go for much longer than that. Today I am fortunate to have had my eyes opened to the good side of the Beaujolais coin, but sadly for many, their eyes are still closed to the pleasures the region offers. Beaujolais is perhaps Burgundy's Muscadet; it has hidden depths, and only those who explore will be likely to discover them.

History

The region of Beaujolais is named for its historical capital, Beaujeu, although today nearby Villefranche-sur-Saône has greater economic significance. For many centuries viticulture was of little importance here, the Gamay and other vines playing a minor role amongst fields of wheat and rye, and the occasional flock of sheep. The determined local vignerons once dealt with all the difficulties I have already expounded in my guide to Mâconnais, namely the lack of a ready market and difficulties in transporting the finished wines. Prior to the 17th century they would be moved by road, an arduous journey, but with the development of the canal system the wines would be shipped to Paris on the Canal de Briare and then into the Loire, a slower but nevertheless cheaper and less risky route.

Beaujolais is Gamay country, or to be more specific Gamay Noir, to distinguish this variety from the Gamay teinturiers - grapes with red flesh as well as red skins - such as Gamay de Bouze. Gamay Noir covers 98% of the region, with what remains being Chardonnay - particularly favoured where there is limestone - and also some Pinot Noir. Gamay is the natural offspring of Pinot Noir and the little known Gouais, and has been cultivated in the region for at least seven centuries. Some evidence for this history comes from Philippe the Bold, one of the powerful Dukes of Burgundy, who as I have discussed in my section on History and Variety spoke out against Gamay as early as 1395, and indeed acted to curtail its spread by outlawing its cultivation. Despite this it remained a popular choice with local vignerons as it ripened a full two weeks earlier than Pinot Noir, but the actions of Philippe and others explain to some extent why the variety is concentrated outside of the Côte d'Or, where Pinot Noir and Chardonnay rule.

Carbonic Maceration

Although few wine guides deserve a section dedicated to the regional peculiarities of vinification, this is not true of Beaujolais. Summed up in the most simplest fashion, most of the world's red wines are first pressed and then the resulting must - a mixture of grape juice and grape solids, the latter including pulp, pips, skins and maybe stalks - are transferred to a fermentation vessel of some sort. Fermenting Gamay in this way can yield a very unremarkable wine (or in some cases a delicious one), whereas the process of carbonic maceration can produce dramatically different and perhaps - although not in the eyes of all - more attractive results.

The technique takes whole, undamaged and unpressed bunches of grapes which are deposited directly into the fermentation tank. As more fruit is piled in those grapes at the bottom are crushed by those being added on top, leading to three distinct layers. These are; at the bottom, the juice of crushed berries, then in the middle intact grapes and grape solids floating in juice, and lastly on the top intact bunches of grapes sitting in the carbon dioxide gas which is produced by the fermentation below. The middle grapes take on the alcohol by osmosis, whereas at the bottom the fermentation continues unabated. But it is the top layer of grapes that really matter in most Beaujolais cuvées; here anaerobic processes ongoing within the fruit not only contribute alcohol to the mix, but also tend to reduce the concentration of malic acids, enhancing the soft mouthfeel of the wine. Eventually the fruit may be pressed to extract the juice and sugar from those grapes that remain intact, and so to allow the fermentation to continue, but the effect of that top layer can still be felt in the final wine.

Some producers, particularly those aiming for a more serious cuvée intended for cellaring rather than drinking young, may dispense with this practice, pressing and submerging the fruit in the fermenting wine from the offset, but for the typical early drinker this is the technique by which it will have been produced.

Terroir

The vineyards lie sandwiched between those of Mâcon to the north and the Northern Rhône appellations to the south, and indeed from an administrative point of view Beaujolais is considered more part of the Rhône Valley than Burgundy, although viticulturally and historically it is clearly more associated with the former than the latter. The region can be conveniently bisected according to terroir, with the Nizerand, which flows west-east across the region into the Saône, providing a convenient marker of the division. To the south, the Bas Beaujolais is characterised by sandstone, limestone, sand and clay, the topography is flatter than further north, and the soils richer; the wines here have the generic Beaujolais appellation. North of the Nizerand it is a different story; this is a land of rolling hills affording the vines a more favourable aspect and drainage, and the soils here are schistous or granitic in places, with some limestone. This is the Haut Beaujolais, much of which has the Beaujolais Villages appellation, although there are also ten crus here, on the hilly regions to the north where the schist and granite is most apparent. The map above shows these ten cru appellations, and although my attempt at cartography perhaps suggests this is a broad and sweeping region do not be fooled. The distance between some of the cru villages can be measured in fractions of a kilometre, as I noticed whenever I escaped my unfriendly campsite during my visit to the region. From Odenas to St-Amour-Bellevue is less than 30 km, and although I visited the region by car it would also be ideal for even the most casual of cyclist.

The Appellations and Crus

Much of what is bottled here is Beaujolais and Beaujolais-Villages, the distinguishing feature here being vineyard of origin as described above. The occasionally sighted Beaujolais Supérieur is no different to Beaujolais, other than a minimum alcohol of 10% for the former rather than 9% for the latter. Beaujolais Nouveau simply implies early release, on the third Thursday of November following the harvest, and both Beaujolais and Beaujolais-Villages may append Blanc to their names for their white wines. There is also a tiny amount of rosé. At the top of the Beaujolais pyramid, however, are the ten crus, much more restricted areas of vineyard in the Haut Beaujolais, where quality can be very high indeed. Some have a reputation for elegance and a feminine style, such as St Amour, Fleurie and Chiroubles, whereas others are better associated with the more meaty and in many cases ageworthy wines of the region, such as Morgon and Moulin-à-Vent. I think to some extent these generalisations hold true, but it is of course as dependent on the viticulteur and vintage as much as anything else. It is too easy for these vineyard and regional characteristics to be drowned out in the cellar, whether by the use of cultured yeast, the whole berry fermentation technique known as carbonic maceration as described above, or atypical use of oak. For that reason it is better, in my opinion, to follow producer or domaine rather than cru. A full list of the cru villages and notable domaines are given in the box above.

Conclusion

This snapshot of Beaujolais does little to convey the region's complexity, but I hope it gives a taster. I suspect to some, who view wine as a symbol of status, where points, prices and the size of your 'wine collection' are all that really seems to matter, this instalment of my wine guide will be of no interest, but I suspect they will also have stopped reading many paragraphs before this (or perhaps when we got started on the Côte Chalonnaise). But to those who view flavour and pleasure as more important, and who can judge these wines for themselves without needing to channel the opinions of others, this is an important wine region. Yes, there are bad wines here. There are scandals, illegally blended wine, secret chaptalisation, funny practices and sometimes even funny flavours. But there are also dedicated viticulteurs producing attractive, bright and flavoursome wines which seem to me to have within them nebulous and ill-defined characteristics that make wine interesting, such as authenticity, typicity and even history. And, of course, sheer drinkability. Over the years the wines of Beaujolais have given me much pleasure, and I admit that today I simply don't drink enough of them.

And with that admission I bring this guide to Burgundy to a close. I hope that these sixteen instalments, providing a beginner's guide to all things Burgundy, from Chablis to the Côte d'Or, from Bouzeron to Brouilly, prove useful. Burgundy is a fabulous region, both historically and viticulturally, and although I know it less well than some other regions, such as Bordeaux or the Loire, its beauty has certainly not escaped my eye - nor indeed my palate.

• Back to Part 1. Back to my regional wine guides.