Kicking Beaujolais up a notch

Jon Bonné Lifestyle editor • Profile

All Beaujolais is not created alike.

There’s the ubiquitous Beaujolais nouveau— notably those sold under the eye-popping labels of Beaujolais king Georges Duboeuf— and many nouveau drinkers have gravitated to the less-common Beaujolais Villages, made from better grapes using a lengthier winemaking process.

Then there is cru Beaujolais— made from the region’s best gamay noir grapes grown on one of 10 specific parcels of land. Each offers its own style, from light and tart to dark and brooding, depending on which tiny plot of east-central France it called home.

If Beaujolais has been simultaneously revered and reviled thanks to nouveau’s obvious fruitiness, cru Beaujolais bears little resemblance to its easy-drinking cousin. “It’s got about as much relation to that as zinfandel does to white zinfandel,” says John Ragan, wine director at Campton Place restaurant in San Francisco.

Most Beaujolais is made using carbonic maceration, a process largely unique to the region, which harnesses the weight of uncrushed grapes to help ferment large vats of wine. Nouveau and Villages wines are drained off after four to 10 days, and quickly bottled to retain gamay’s fresh, fruity characteristics (and to make a fast buck).  Over the decades, most Beaujolais has been quickly shipped off— once in casks to the bistros of Paris and Lyons, nowadays in colorful bottles and supermarket-ready sales displays. That haste has often made wine aficionados sneer.

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Cru Beaujolais stays out of the rush. It often sits on the pressed remains of grapes for two weeks to gain color and structure. Barrel aging for a year or more is not uncommon. 

Some crus, like those from the communes of Saint-Amour and Chiroubles, offer light, straightforward wines to drink right away. Other areas, notably Morgon, Moulin-à-Vent and the rare Chénas, have gained fame for producing relatively large, powerful wines that demand at least a couple years aging.

In good years, winemakers from these locales approach the respectability of their rarified winemaking neighbors to the north — people like vintner Robert Drouhin, whose winery harnesses pinot noir and chardonnay to create famed Burgundies from appellations like Montrachet and Gevrey-Chambertin, along with seven gamay-based cru Beaujolais.

Not long ago, recalls Drouhin’s son Laurent, Robert served his children an unmarked bottle of red and asked them to identify it.  The four siblings ran through the various pinot-based possibilities. A Côte de Beaune? Perhaps a Santenay?

It was a Moulin-à-Vent, the most celebrated cru Beaujolais, from 1969.

“They can be very interesting when you age them,” says Laurent Drouhin, the winery’s U.S. sales director.

No one expects the crus to trump a first-growth Burgundy, but they are the kings of Beaujolais — and affordable at that. For once, a French region’s finest wines can be sampled for under $25 a bottle, often under $15.

It's all in the hunt
Yet Americans largely ignore their appeal. While Drouhin sells about 20 to 25 percent of its other wines on the U.S. market, just 15 percent of its Beaujolais arrives on these shores. “These wines, most of the time, are enjoyed in Europe,” says Laurent Drouhin.

Perhaps that’s because it can be tricky to sort through the options. Our recent tasting of over 30 cru Beaujolais revealed wide variances in winemaking style and quality. A solid understanding of different styles and crus (or at least a cheat sheet) is essential.

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“You’ve got to know the region and you focus on what you know,” says Alan Sobczak, president of west coast operations for Robert Chadderdon Selections, which specializes in traditional European wines.

Fortunately, Beaujolais has been blessed with two excellent vintages. Extreme heat in 2003 made for an exceptional year and lush, fruit-filled wines that appeal even to Beaujolais skeptics. A year later, 2004’s traditional growing season resulted in a balanced, classic vintage. The first of the 2004 crus are just appearing on the market, and even some 2003s have only recently been released.

Savvy retailers are learning to leverage nouveau’s runaway popularity, using it to gently push nouveau drinkers into the mysterious domain of the crus.

“That gets everyone a pretty big foot in the door right away,” says Patrick Watson, a one-time sommelier who now owns Smith & Vine, a wine store in Brooklyn, N.Y.

The latest vintage of nouveau is always unveiled in November, and not coincidentally, Watson bolsters his cru Beaujolais offerings in the weeks before Thanksgiving with picks from quality producers like Guy Breton, Thevenet and Trénel.

Beaujolais’ food-friendly tendencies are even more pronounced in the crus, which makes them a perfect match for the fruity, filling flavors of the Thanksgiving table. If Beaujolais is in your holiday plans, maybe it’s time to make the leap: Out with the nouveau, in with the cru.

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