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Even though they are all made from the Gamay grape, Beaujolais wines span quite a range of flavor, body and age-ability

French #Winophiles Take on Beaujolais Beyond Nouveau
This is the time of year when Nouveau Beaujolais bursts onto the market. Met with both excitement (PARTY!) and dread (not another Nouveau release, yuck). This year, the French Winophiles teamed up with some generous Beaujolais Vignerons to offer some wonderful Beaujolais choices beyond Nouveau. Take a look further down this post for a full list of over a dozen links to our findings on Beaujolais beyond Nouveau.
Disclaimer: Three of the four wines featured in my post today were provided as samples. All opinions expressed are mine.

If you look closely, you can see the wines do get darker from left to right

Beaujolais, Beaujolais-Villages and the Ten Cru’s
Beaujolais classification follows a general pyramid with basic Beaujolais AOC at the base. The next level is Beaujolais-Villages. The top level is shared by the ten Cru Beaujolais. There isn’t a pecking order among the Cru’s, everyone has their favorite.  Confusingly, the Cru Beaujolais are no longer labeled “Beaujolais” at all, they only carry the village name.  A sure recipe for success in the US (not!). All Beaujolais wines will fit into the general descriptor of lighter, food friendly red wines high in acidity and low in tannins.  Generally, Beaujolais and Beaujolais-Villages will be light, easy drinking wines perfect for the porch or lunch. The Cru Beaujolais can be more serious, and some are known to be lighter in body while others are quite a bit darker and richer. Let’s dig in!

Beaujolais-Villages

Vignerons de Bel Air Beaujolais-Villages “Natural”

Vignerons de Bel Air
The Vignerons de Bel Air are an interesting group; they are a cooperative of 250 growers with a total of 700 hectares (1 hectare = 2.2 acres) in which all the members estate bottle their wines. This is different from most cooperatives which suffer from quality vs. quantity struggles. The Vignerons de Bel Air retain control over individual wines, thus assuring a personal attention to quality.

Vignerons de Bel Air – Beaujolais-Villages Nature Terra Vitis AOP 2016 (sample, € 10 SRP in Europe)
The lightest in color of all four wines sampled, this wine showed classic Beaujolais earthy nose with bright strawberry fruit from semi-carbonic maceration (traditional Beaujolais vinification). The palate was ripe with lively acidity and low tannins. This wine was very good with the pork dish, on the  lighter side. Perhaps a bit underpowered for steak, it could take a slight chill and be easily served with chicken, pork, fish and be a great wine for the deck in the summer.

The Lighter Cru’s

Chiroubles, Regnie, St. Amour, Fleurie

Gilles Paris Chirobles “Terroir” is a natural wine that conforms to all the typical Cru Beaujolais AOC requirements

Gilles Paris
Gilles Paris takes as natural an approach as possible both in the vineyard and in the cellar. He farms 5 Hectares (HA) organically including vines of up to 50 years in age. The soils in Chiroubles consist of decomposed granite. The vinification is all native yeast fermentation, no sulfur is used either in-process or at bottling. Chiroubles “Terroir” is fermented and aged entirely in stainless steel tank using semi-carbonic maceration for 15-20 days.

Gilles Paris Chiroubles “Les Genets” 2015 AOC ($24 from Sunfish Cellars)
This wine pale to medium in color and slightly hazy, indicating it was unfiltered.   The wine has definite fine sediment, again showing no flavor was lost in filtering. This wine showed typical Beaujolais earthiness, with quite tart cranberry fruit notes, which matched up with the semi-carbonic maceration. Again with lively acidity and low tannins, it showed good Beaujolais character.

If you think all natural wines are funky and flawed, you should seek this wine out. This wine is marked “sans soufre” so no sulfites were used to stabilize the wine. It meets all the AOP requirements and tastes as fresh and pure as any other well made Cru Beaujolais.

The Medium Body Cru’s

Chenas, Brouilly, Cotes de Brouilly, and Julienas

Domaine de Briante Brouilly “Naturellement”

Domaine de Briante
Here’s one to save: when you visit Beaujolais, consider staying at the Domaine de Briante! The winery is also a Maison d’Hotes, so they have guest rooms and they look beautiful! The website is in French, so you may want to use Google translate or view the web page in Chrome.

Domaine de Briante Brouilly “Naturellement” AOC 2015 (sample, $15 online)
Medium in tone, this wine showed a bit darker richer side of Cru Beaujolais. Always earthy with darker blueberry and black berry notes.  This wine also showed a bit more tannic punch than the prior wines.  Still not mouth scouring, just a bit more than the earlier examples. This wine shifted over to a place to be comfortable with grilled red meats, although it was still very enjoyable alongside pork chops with a tasty bed of onions, spinach, cornichons and tomatoes.

Cru Beaujolais with Bigger Bones

Morgon and Moulin-a-Vent

Dominique Piron Morgon Côte du Py

Dominque Piron 
Dominique Piron’s family has been rooted in Beaujolais since 1590 with 14 generations of winegrowers to their credit. Dominique Piron is engaged in sustainable winegrowing. On winegrowing land filled with old broken-down granite and schist, the watchwords are natural balance and biodiversity.

Fermentation is in the Burgundy style, that is to say not carbonic maceration but traditional fermentation in vats with daily pigeage (foot trodding) or puchdowns, aging in neutral oak, being careful to avoid oaky flavors which aren’t appropriate for Gamay.

Dominque Piron Morgon Cote du Py AOP 2015 (sample, $22 online)
Medium in color, this wine was the darkest of the bunch. Fresh dark fruit and lovely herbs on the nose. Again, deeper in tone with lively acidity and medium tannins. The structure of the Brouilly and the Morgon Cote du Py stood out as deeper and fuller in body than the others. While very good with the pork, this wine would have no trouble pairing with braised, roasted or grilled meats.  Maybe not so much with delicate fish.

Test Driving Beaujolais Over Dinner
Our Beaujolais wines showed different sides of Beaujolais character, but the differences were more of nuance than broad strokes. The first two showed the bright red fruit typical of semi-carbonic maceration, while the last two showed darker fruit, likely due to a more burgundian fermentation style. Still, they were all Gamay and showed lovely Beaujolais character.

We paired the wines with a dish from my favorite cookbook with recipes seeming to originate from the environs around Lyon, which is perfect for Beaujolais.  The dish included pork chops with an unusual (to my American palate) combination of onions, cornichons, spinach and tomatoes, but it was perfect with the Beaujolais. The cornichons gave the entire meal that vinegary acidity and snap, so a wine with lively acidity is needed to match up with the dish. Gamay did the trick!

Pick your favorite Lyonnais dish to serve with Beaujolais. Or hamburgers. Or chicken. Or beef. Beaujolais is versatile!

French Winophiles Posts and Chat
Go ahead and pick up a bottle of Nouveau, but not two!  Instead, take a look at our posts and pick up something equally economical, equally perfect for the dinner table, but with more personality, more depth, or more OOMPH.

Here’s a compilation of our posts. Don’t forget to join our chat!

• Jill from L’Occasion shares “No Sleep ’til Beaujolais: The French Wine That’s Keeping Us Up All Night“ 
• Martin from Enofylz writes “Ready To Elevate Your Beaujolais Game? Go Beyond Nouveau!”
• Lynn from Savor the Harvest writes “Beaujolais Beyond Nouveau”
• Rob from Odd Bacchus shares “Beaujolais Reassessed“ 
• Wendy from A Day in the Life on the Farm writes “Say Yay for Beaujolais“ 
• Jane from Always Ravenous shares “Beaujolais Wine: A Foodie’s Dream”
• Nicole from Somms Table writes “Cooking to the Wine: Stephane Aviron Cru Beaujolais with Pork Tenderloin While Jumping Life Hurdles“
• Lauren from The Swirling Dervish shares “Thanksgiving for Two: Mushroom-Stuffed Pork Loin Paired with Beaujolais Cru” 
• Jeff from Food Wine Click! shares “Tasting the Beaujolais Pyramid over Dinner”
• Gwendolyn from Wine Predator asks “Do you know the way to Beaujolais?”  Followed up by “We do! Part 2 with Coq a Vin!”
• Liz from What’s in that Bottle invites us to “Discover Real Beaujolais”
• Cam of Culinary Adventures with Camilla tells us about her “Top of the Central Coast; My Beaujolais Pairing Dinner”
• Michelle from Rockin Red Blog writes “Exploring Cru Beaujolais with #Winophiles“
• David from Cooking Chat shares “Food-Friendly Red Wine from Beaujolais“

Join our chat on Saturday November 18 at 10-11am CST (11am EST, 8am PST, and 1700 hours in France)! See what we think of Beaujolais, and tell us about your experiences! Simply log into Twitter and search for the #winophiles tag, and you’re in!