This is very much the image that many people have of Beaujolais wine — light, easy to drink and easy to forget. However, with different viticultural and winemaking techniques, a whole other style of wine is being made from this grape.
However it is made, a good Beaujolais wine is likely to have aromas of raspberries and cherries, a touch of black pepper and some minerality and be an enjoyable, food-friendly wine. An extraordinary aspect of a good-quality Gamay wine is that as it evolves over time, it becomes more and more like a Pinot Noir. In fact, producers in some parts of Beaujolais are able to label their white wines Bourgogne Blanc.
There are approved Gamay clones in Beaujolais. However, they are becoming less fashionable and some growers are reverting to massal selection. Traditionally the Gamay grapes were trained into a gobelet free-standing bush form, but as new vineyards are planted, they tend to be trellised and trained using the single guyot format with up to 12 buds.
This has the advantage of placing the clusters of grapes in the optimum position to ensure that the grapes get enough sun exposure to ripen more fully with leaf plucking if necessary.
Single guyot also ensures that each bud has greater likelihood of ripening. As rainfall occurs throughout the year, irrigation is not usually an issue. In fact, what is really key is that the soils drain well, as vines hate sitting in water. As this is an area with year-round rainfall, all the usual suspects that emerge in damp conditions can make life difficult here, such as powdery mildew, botrytis and grey rot.
Growers need to be vigilant and also manage the vine canopy to ensure that the air can flow well through the vines, drying any moisture on the grapes and helping to keep them healthy and disease-free. Unpredictable weather events like hailstorms or heavy rainfall present challenges and growers have to respond as best they can. Although historical, Beaujolais can be seen as an up-and-coming region where land and grape prices are much more affordable than in other regions.
This is attracting a new generation of young, innovative growers and producers. One particularly noticeable trend is the move towards more sustainable production, with many producers already certified organic or biodynamic and plenty more in the process of conversion. Row inter-planting, a reduction in the use of chemicals and an emphasis on soil health and biodiversity are among the techniques being espoused.
These days there are many different styles of Beaujolais red wine being made, as the new generation of winemakers experiments with different techniques. Carbonic maceration process. Photo provided by Westbury Communications. To make wines this way, you need to hand-harvest whole clusters of very healthy, disease-free grapes. Often the clusters of grapes are chilled prior to fermentation to help avoid bacteria entering the vat because in a carbon-saturated environment such as these sealed tanks, micro-organisms can take over and spoil the whole batch of wine.
The chilled whole clusters are then put carefully into a special stainless steel tank, which tends to be wide rather than tall to reduce the level of crushing. Carbon dioxide is injected into the tanks, which are hermetically sealed. If any yeasts are going to be added, they are added at this point, before the tanks are sealed. An extraordinary process gets underway in the uppermost clusters of grapes.
An intra-cellular fermentation begins within each whole grape. For a period of days, the enzymes in each grape begin to convert the sugar into alcohol and to break down the malic acid in effect an initial malolactic fermentation , all in an anaerobic oxygen-free environment. Meanwhile, the grapes lower down tend to split open under the weight of the grapes above, and the juice seeps out. So these crushed grapes and their juice begin a normal alcoholic fermentation process, usually with the ambient yeasts unless yeasts were added to the vat.
In a real carbonic maceration process, the grapes would now be pressed and the juice fermented. However, what tends to happen in Beaujolais is that the grapes are left to split open and release their juice within the sealed, oxygen-free vat and a normal alcoholic fermentation process of grape must in contact with the skins gets underway. If gas builds up within the tank, it can be vented off.
Sometimes, a grill is placed in the vat to keep the mass of grape skins and debris known as the cap from floating on the surface of the wine. By keeping the submerged, it is not necessary to pump wine over it or punch it down to keep it wet and problem-free. This method produces light-coloured wines with less tannins and, at their best, lots of vibrant red fruit aromas and flavours.
These wines are often bottled after a short resting period ready for early drinking. Many winemakers make their red wine using the normal alcoholic fermentation process with all its usual permutations. The vats can be open wooden casks, concrete or stainless steel tanks. Yeasts may or may not be added. Pumping over. Photo credit: Westbury Communications. Traditionally, whole clusters of grapes went into the vat but these days many producers are experimenting with partial or complete destemming.
There are a number of considerations involved here. Those who prefer to destem argue that the stalks give greener, more astringent tannins especially if the grapes were not completely ripe when picked and that they can absorb colour.
A wine made with destemmed grapes can make for fresher, fruitier and rounder wines with finer tannins, which can be bolstered by some oak-ageing. However, retaining some whole clusters means that there will be some intra-cellular fermentation and the creation of fruity aromas. During the fermentation, winemakers use different techniques to break up the cap of grape skins that forms on the surface and to extract colour, tannin and flavours from the skins.
These include pump-overs, punch-downs and rack and return and will also impact the final style of wine. While some Beaujolais wine is released after a short resting period in an inert vat for early drinking, others undergo some level of oak-ageing. Photo credit: Inter-Beaujolais. In a cool year, the grapes from some vineyards can be underripe, which creates two issues: firstly the wines can lack fruitiness and also have rather grippy tannins, particularly if the grapes are not destemmed.
Many Beaujolais winemakers are opting for natural winemaking with minimal additions to their wines, including yeasts and sulphur dioxide. Beaujolais Nouveau is bottled after 3 to 5 days of carbonic maceration in the vat, while non-primeur Beaujolais wines go through the whole alcoholic fermentation process. These wines are light, fruity and very easy to drink. Traditionally people associated them with aromas of bananas and bubblegum but this issue seems to be related to winemaking techniques and is largely a thing of the past.
But the fashion waned, people began to look down on these light fruity wines and the Beaujolais producers found themselves with unsold wines that had to be sent for distillation and a loss of prestige for their other wines. The crushed grapes usually undergo a short period of maceration so that the juice takes on some of the colour from the skins. Then the grapes are pressed and the must goes through the same winemaking process as a white wine. The colour and tannin levels vary according to how long the maceration period was.
These wines are usually dry, light and best enjoyed young as an aperitif or with light dishes like salad. Chardonnay is, of course, a gloriously versatile variety that can both reveal its terroir and adapt well to the whole battery of winemaking techniques. Beaujolais winemaker and merchant Jules Chauvet is seen by many as the founder of the French natural wine movement, who advocated making soils healthier, using fewer chemicals in the vineyard and eliminating the use of sulphur in fermentation.
Jules Chauvet trained in chemistry and carried out scientific research into all aspects of wine, including yeasts, malolactic fermentation and carbonic maceration. Did you enjoy this Fast Facts feature? Please support 80 Harvests and become a member to get unrestricted access to all our content. Helen also blogs about wine.
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This renewed interest in America, but also in France and even Japan gave some economic support for young growers who moved to Beaujolais looking to do great things.
The growing season was a bit of a challenge, but producers who were able to wait and wait and harvest late made some delicious, fresh wines.
But the key thing is that the wines have flexibility , as evidenced by the common practice of drinking Beaujolais with Thanksgiving dinner. Stick with us! This series of blog posts will talk about a bunch of them. Better yet, sign up for our newsletter.
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Of course, the best way to get to know the growers is to taste their wines, and you can see all in stock Beaujolais wines in the New York store , and the SF store. But the best place to go if you want to get started today, is to look at our local blogs on Beaujolais from the NY Store and the SF Store which each have links to some of our favorite producers.
How many appellations are there in Beaujolais? There are 12 appellations in Beaujolais. How much wine does Beaujolais make each year? How many colors of wine do they make in Beaujolais? What grapes do they grow in Beaujolais?
How big a deal is Beaujolais Nouveau? This blog was produced thanks to the kind support of. The first thing to understand is that t he wines of Beaujolais are divided into three in three classifications: Beaujolais, Beaujolais Villages, and Beaujolais Crus. This is your one stop guide to the 10 Crus of Beaujolais. Beaujolais is perhaps the most versatile wine to accompany almost all foods.
Probably not good with a caramel stout brownie sundae float, but I have not tried it. However, in Lyon, a town that celebrates food, Beaujolais is served with virtually everything. Allen Meadows, more familiarly known as Burghound, was once asked what wines he likes to drink most from outside of Burgundy. His answer was Cote Rotie. I've heard this kind of answer again and again from wine drinkers who love Burgundy. La Morra is a very important village!
Also because it produces a lot of wine! Austria is a beautiful country, ancient, yet modern and accessible with wines to match. The people are welcoming and generous, jovial, and wine is an integral part of their lives. The key to Austrian wine is quality and consistency, rather than quantity. No other country can boast such high standards across the price spectrum and throughout all of their regions.
Left Continue shopping Your Order. You have no items in your cart. Promotion Read more. Twitter Facebook Instagram. What is Beaujolais? Why should I be so passionate? What does Beaujolais taste like? Different Beaujolais wines from different parts of the region made in different ways by different producers in different vintages will make wines that taste… different! But for now, we can make some generalizations. Beaujolais has aromas of bright red fruits raspberries, sometimes strawberry or even cherry.
Some Beaujolais especially from the Crus can have distinct floral scents , as well as mineral and other savory notes. With time in the cellar the wines can evolve more towards a Burgundian or Pinot Noir-like combination of forest floor and animal.
Beaujolais wines taste similar to how they smell: pretty fruit, subtle earthy and mineral notes. So most wines end up without much tannin making them a good red wine pairing for fish but with lovely acidity of the type that brings out food flavors and keeps your palate feeling alive, excited.
The alcohol levels tend to stay reasonable, so you can have a few glasses without overwhelming either your mind or your palate. Burgundy vs. Climates Both regions are continental, but whereas Burgundy is decidedly northern, Beaujolais, is the first region to get a hint of Mediteranean influence. Some sun, warmer winds. Soils Burgundy is famous for its hodgepodge of limestone and clay soils, the subtle variations of which collectors will obsess over.
Beaujolais, on the other hand, is most famous for granite soils and to a lesser extent, schiste, clay and sandstone. This is catnip to winegeeks! Beaujolais is mostly about red wine from Gamay. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads.
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