One of an impressive number of bargains (20 in all!) in the recent Wine Society tasting described here.
From €12.50, £12.95, 20 Swiss francs, $21.99.
What could be more perfect on an early summer evening than a perfect cru beaujolais made for relatively early drinking. Ladies and gentlemen, I offer you perfection in this wine.
It’s virtually hand-made by Grégoire Hoppenot, voted Newcomer of the Year by France’s most prominent wine magazine La Revue des Vins de France in 2020, the year this lovely wine was made. (I wonder whether he’s as serious as he looks in the picture taken above by Wine Society buyer Tim Sykes?)
Until 2018 Hoppenot scouted the entire Beaujolais region for his employers, the respected Beaujolais négociant Trenel. He therefore built up quite a grasp of where the best sites are and rents two of them. Les Garants has Fleurie’s infertile, granite-based soils with some visible quartz outcrops. It lies immediately above the pretty village itself and faces south-south-west . Vine density is high and some of the vines are up to 60 years old. The other ingredient in this Origines bottling is from the lieu-dit Les Roches. But apparently most of the fruit is from relatively young vines which he has worked organically since they were planted in the first decade of this century. He is not yet certified organic.
According to Sykes, ‘Grégoire told me when we last spoke on the phone that he has no intention of expanding his holdings as he wants total control over all aspects of the wine’s production, although he did admit that he’s planting some Chardonnay and Chenin on limestone soils in the Terres Dorées region of southern Beaujolais’. That Chenin should be particularly interesting.
Certainly this wine has all the hallmarks of being individually crafted. The whole bunches are left in a concrete 60-hl tank for 12 days, keeping the temperature no more than 30 °C with daily pumpovers to keep those tannins soft and extraction as gentle as possible. Fermentation was spontaneous, with full malo. No sulphites are added until both alcoholic and malolactic fermentations are complete and even then, additions are so low that the final total SO2 level is only 40 mg/l with 15 mg/l free. For those eager for yet more tech spec the analysis shows RS 0 g/l, TA 3.48 g/l and pH 3.54.
Although 2020 saw a notoriously hot summer, this wine is just 13%. Hoppenot picked these Gamay grapes early, between 25 and 30 August.
My tasting note:
Transparent garnet. Correct, lovely, approachable cru beaujolais with real grip and no shortage of fruit. Absolute bullseye of a wine with everything in its place. Long too. Definitely underpriced.
I marked it VGV for very good value (I know you can find Fleuries cheaper than this but surely not one as perfect as this). I gave it 16.5/20 and suggested a drinking window of 2021–2025. That grip suggests it will last well, but it’s clearly not one of those cru beaujolais made to be drunk only after quite a few years in bottle (which to my mind are less useful than this silky, fruity specimen.)
It’s available in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland, exclusively from The Wine Society in the UK and from Flatiron of San Francisco and Sokolin of Bridgehampton, NY.
Explore Beaujolais through our many articles on the region and its wines.