Drink More Beaujolais - New Arrivals from Jean-Claude Lapalu! And many more...

5/31/17 -

One of the great pleasures of our winter trip to France is La Dive Bouteille in Saumur, where one can taste the great Beaujolais of the Descombes family, Lapierre, Chanudet, Breton, Leonis and others, including the beautiful natural wines of Jean-Claude Lapalu. Currently one of the most respected growers in Beaujolais, Lapalu began his career as a grape grower, only beginning to produce his own wines in 1996. "He found his way gradually, step by step along the years through questioning, from a conventional type of farming to one that eschews chemicals and the same for the winemaking, toward a vinification reduced to a simple and natural process, with indigenous yeast and low intervention." *  the early years Lapalu was apparently influenced more by southern producers such as Richaud,  Milan and Gramenon before he met and became friends with Lapierre, Foillard, Thevenet and other producers of natural Beaujolais. As with the other great producers of Beaujolais, the farming here In is exemplary with organic certification since 2010, and biodynamic methods as well. And Lapalu's vineyards have a very high percentage of old vines, with most parcels averaging between 50 and 100 years of age. Always experimenting, Jean-Claude currently produces a number of cuvées without sulfur and has been working with amphora since 2009 for his cuvée "Alma Mater." Of the wines on offer today, only the Beaujolais-Villages is from carbonic-maceration, with whole clusters that macerate for 10 to 12 days and aging for 6 to 7 months in concrete vats. The other three cuvées are primarily destemmed and undergo a three to four week cuvaison with only a small percentage of carbonic maceration. We are very happy to present the three 2015s, which seemed to us to be among the best wines from this warm vintage - they are dense and complex wines but quite balanced and elegant, well suited for current drinking, preferably with decanting, as well as five to ten-plus years of cellaring. And while the 2012 vintage was not well received in the American press, we were quite partial to the low alcohol and vibrant fruit of many of the wines, in particular the 2012 Lapalu Cote de Brouilly. It's a beautiful wine, very pretty and complex, and while it's delicious now, it should really sing in another three to five years - we urge you to try it! (*Quoted from Bert Celce on wineterroirs.com - please see the pictorial essay on Jean-Claude Lapalu, and hundreds more, on this fabulous website!)

Speaking of Beaujolais, 2014 and 2015 have provided us with many reasons to Drink More Beaujolais - included below are some of our current favorites, all guaranteed to give great pleasure this summer, served nicely chilled, at your picnics and barbecues. The 2014 Vieilles Vignes cuvées from Georges Descombes are particularly delicious, as always, and his 2015 "regular" cuvées are lovely as well. We have been touting for the past year the superb 2014s from Cédric Chignard - the Julienas "Beauvernay," and the Fleurie "Les Moriers." These are stylish, perfectly balaced wines that are a joy to drink! And we are well-stocked with the beautiful biodynamic wines from our friends Joëlle and Roland Pignard - these are true wines of terroir that offer layers of ripe complex fruit over an intense mineral core. And coming soon are the supernatural 2016 Exspectatia and 2015 Patience from Christian Ducroux in Regnié, certainly among the finest natural wines of France!

-David Lillie