Foillard 2006 Morgon Côte du Py (Beaujolais) – Vastly lighter than some vintages, and almost breathtakingly beautiful as a result. Literally so: I’m completely enraptured by the ethereal blend of spice, soil, berry, and soul in this wine. Texturally sensuous but far from slutty. I don’t just want to drink this, I want to bathe in it. (7/09)
Browse Tag
gamay
3.14y
Foillard 2000 Morgon Côte du Py (Beaujolais) – Mildly corked, grossly bretty, and otherwise not good. (5/09)
Foillard 2001 Morgon Côte du Py (Beaujolais) – Very bretty. Straddles the dueling worlds of Burgundy (a deep, moody complexity of berries and black trumpet mushrooms) and the Rhône (funky, sun-baked undergrowth). But I’d like it a lot more were there less stink. (5/09)
Hail fellow, well-Métras
Métras 2007 Beaujolais (Beaujolais) – Crisp, sharp, and overtly prickly. A pickled wine, but which I don’t mean there’s vinegar or dill, but rather that it bears the same relation to gamay of more restraint and elegance as a pickle does to a freshly-picked cucumber. A chill’n’quaffer, for sure. (5/09)
Chiroubles in mind
Pacalet 2005 Chiroubles (Beaujolais) – Electrified gamay. Crisp light purple fruit, zippy and zingy, with a strong charge as the dominant textural element. This is a wine that refuses to sit still. Really, really good. (4/09)
Grosjean lady
![[vineyard]](http://www.grosjean.vievini.it/accessibile/immaginibig/6.jpg)
Grosjean 2007 Gamay (Vallee d’Aoste) – Almost everywhere it’s grown, gamay is an appealing, “easy” grape, and where it’s lent complexity, the source is the terroir or meddling winemaking. Not so here, though I think the same is true of many Aoste wines; there’s no getting around the fact that this is a difficult wine. Reddish fruit takes on a grey hue as viewed through veils of layered minerality. Yet there’s a rough-hewn element as well, one that counters the rocky strata with an unevenly textured chunk of dirt-clad darkness. It’s a light wine, but it’s most certainly not a gentle one. I think age might bring greater clarity here. For now, the intellectual interest alone is enough to recommend this wine, though I can’t promise actual enjoyment; that will depend on the taster. (3/09)
A Forez into the unknown
Verdier-Logel 2006 Côtes du Forez “Cuvée des Gourmets” (Loire) – Unmistakably gamay. Red fruit done in metallic shades, hints and dashes of herb, and a lively freshness full of spark and verve. There’s some dusty lead around the edges, as well. Quite linear, and the wine doesn’t reward careful study, but it’s certainly tasty. (3/09)
Chatelard, put out the light
Rosier “Château du Chatelard” 2006 Fleurie “Les Vieux Granits” (Beaujolais) – Cold, almost icy minerality, with a chilled blackberry boisterousness that never quite manages to escape an enveloping gauze. I’d be interested to see how this develops, because it’s a middle-tier Fleurie right now, but all that minerality would seem to have serious potential for future rocky goodness. (1/09)
Bravery & Vallières
JM Burgaud 2006 Régnié Vallières (Beaujolais) – Straightforward gamayness, light and red-pink-purple-fruited, with an engaging appeal. There’s not really much more to say. It’s good. It’s tasty. It’s highly drinkable. It’s no more than that, though. (1/09)
Defoliation
JP Brun 2006 Beaujolais Rosé “d’folie” (Beaujolais) – Sunlit berries with squirts of ripe blood orange. The wine pulses rather than flows, but it’s quite engaging amidst the peaks and troughs. (12/08)
TGV towards Marseilles
JP Brun “FRV100” (Beaujolais) – Turning sweeter, mostly because the fruit is starting to diminish. The last few bottles of this have been all over the map, which suggests to me that it’s nearing the end of its most useful period. But who knows, really? (10/08)