Death of a major figure in Beaujolais: Georges DuBoeuf

A sad day. Georges DeBoeuf had a huge impact on his wine region. Beaujolais Nouveau celebrations (the first of the year's wine releases) have spread worldwide due to his efforts to drive both wine quality and wine marketing. We visited his winery/museum/wine town, and were very impressed. Tasting there, we found many high-quality wines that never make it to the US, all made from the overlooked Gamay grape.

Even in the Willamette Valley, growers tend to plant Syrah, not Gamay, as the climate warms, whereas the natural order (with increasing climate warmth, as you head south in France) is Pinot Noir, then Gamay, then Syrah.  This is unfortunate.

Coincidentally, as he was dying, we were hosting a Beaujolais Nouveau dinner party (with a great duck ragout dish), and that wine was widely perceived, around the table, as a great wine. So fascinating, that a wine could be so good after just a months after harvest.

Here is a nice short article mentioning DuBoeuf's contributions.

What a dinner! Review of J. Drouhin 2019 Beaujoais Nouveau, with duck ragout

Wow! Just finished a dinner party.

I cooked: Duck Ragout (Epicurious recipe), served over egg noodles.

I served: 2019 Joseph Drouhin Beaujolais Nouveau, from Winebow. We loved the 2018, so we happily bought the 2019 and were not disappointed. What a great wine! Enough acid to marry with the food; great cherry flavor; just a near-perfect wine. Astonished that it could be so good after just a few months from harvest. If you haven't had this at a B.Nouveau party, do it!

Later courses were baguettes with a Brittany Brie, and then Vosges Chocolates (OMG!)  from a wizardess in Chicago--highly recommend haute cuisine!--and then I made cocktails from Angeleno Amaro and Sprite and orange slices. What an evening! This is how you cement friendships.

2018 Joseph Drouhin Beaujolais Nouveau!

Embaraassed to say that it's been a long, long time since I drank a Beaujolais Nouveau (made from the Gamay grape in Beaujolais, which sits south of Burgundy and north of the Rhone). The Nouveau is made quickly and sold in late November. It's meant to be drunk young, and slightly chilled.

Why I love this wine:

It's got great purple fruits, to go with its lively purple robe (color). Zesty attack. The fruit notes are much more forward than most European wines, and my New World palate loves that. The grape notes are "grapey," which is unusual in most fine wines ("grapeiness" is usually found in Vitis labrusca species of grape, and Concord (think Welch's grape jelly) is the best example of labrusca). But it works here. There is also a lot of acid (the wine is ridiculously young), but that works as well. Gamay is a great grape that not many winelovers take seriously, but they should. Even in the Willamette Valley, you see Pinot growers plant Syrah as the climate warms--but they skipped over Gamay!

We're going to have this wine tonight with a casserole of potatoes, onion, garlic, in cream and lots of pepper and allspice, and with sardines and anchovies. That is one of several types of preferred dishes with this wine. Can't wait!

My price to sell it was just $15; it has wonderful quality for that price.

It doesn't hurt that this Nouveau was made by Joseph Drouhin, a world-reknowned Burgundy family (Pinot Noir; Chardonnay). But what a great wine, and what a great wine style! I encourage you to buy them. They are only available in November, through pre-order in August or September.

The red carpet in Romaneche-Thorins (Beaujolais)

This morning we were in Romaneche-Thorins, north of Belleville, France, where we toured the "Hameau DeBoeuf," the "Hamlet of DeBoeuf," where Georges DeBouef is, the largest maker of Beaujolais.

They really rolled the red carpet out for us. Yann, their manager of exports to the US (who travels in the US about a third of the year, and has been to Portland five times already), gave us a vineyard tour. The winery sits in Moulin a-Vent (named for a windmill), which is one of the ten or so upper-quality communes in Beaujolais. The winery was well worth seeing, as it has several innovations I had not seen elsewhere. We met the winemaker and toured the winery. We saw the vineyards of Moulin a'Vent, where the trunks are only 6" high with no trellises, so the vines grown into a low mound (to be close to the heat of the ground, we were told).

Then we went into the lab, where Mr. DeBoeuf (who's about 79 now) tastes over 300 wines per day--G.D. makes perhaps a dozen or so of their own wines, but they also put their name on the wines made by many small area growers, most of whom make their own wine and use G.D. for tasting advice and lab work; it's a great cooperation between one huge winery and many local growers and winemakers. The lab's tasting room is where Spectator and Parker come to taste! It has a huge tile island and many stainless steel sinks which have swirling water, where we spat out our tastes (pity, I know, but I had to drive to Geneva and through the Mt. Blanc tunnel back to Italy afterwards, and the Europeans are very strict about blood alcohol levels). We tasted 16 (!) wines that they opened just for us. That is awfully impressive. We were the first Americans to taste their 2011s; quite an honor,

My overall perceptions and tidbits for you:

1. Gamay is their only red grape; all their reds use 100% Gamay. And Beaujolais is small--only 30 miles wide and tall. So the wines reflect only the differences in terroir from site to site, and also the differences (which are few) in winemaking practices.

2. The order of grape regions there, heading north to south as the weather gets warmer, is Pinot Noir (Burgundy), then Gamay (Beaujolais), then Syrah (the Rhone Valley). This makes me wonder why more Willamette Valley growers don't plant some Gamay, instead of planting Syrah.

3. Gamay is a vinifera hybrid; one of its parents is Pinot Noir. This explains how the upscale G.D. Beaujolais that have been oaked have a distinct Pinot presence (barnyard nose; the subtlety of Pinot; etc).

4. G.D. also makes great--really great--Chardonnays from Macon Villages (just N of Beaujolais, in Burgundy) and from Pouilly Fuisse. These are given malo-lactic fermentation but are not California oak/butter bombs; very elegant while possessing just enough body and smoothness.

5. The G.D. wines are for the most part very low in cost, which is a great market segment for them, given the price of Burgundy and Bordeaux.

6. I preferred the newer (2010 and 2011) Beaujolais; the 2009's, while from their greatest year ever, have lost some fruit as the various secondary flavors emerge. This makes for a more-complex wine but I am not yet used to those flavors. The younger wines are very vibrant with fresh red fruit notes (cherry and raspberry), with good acidity (like Sangiovese here in Italy) so they marry well with food. We didn't have them with food, but I want to try them that way.

We were then given free passes to what must be one of the three finest wine museums in the world. We saw Roman wine amphora, a GIANT wine press that it took many men to operate, antique grapegrowing and winemaking tools, a bottle blowing exhibit, barrel making, etc. Really amazing. There are three theaters showing movies but we hadn't the time.

Also, the G.D. complex includes the town's train station and they even have a historic wine train (with tank cars for wine)! Plus a hotel and a retail shop where the wines are far cheaper than in the US (perhaps to the cost of shipping?). Yet these wines are very, very good for the price. Look for my offerings of them when we get home!

This was a very classy, impressively large, wine tourist experience!


Photos: 
1. Moulin A Vent (named for a windmill in the commune) is one of ten or so top Beaujolais communes, Hameau DuBoeuf sits in that commune.

 2. DuBoeuf's tasting room, with swirling sinks for spitting wine. This is where Spectator and Parker come to taste, so it was pretty cool. That's Yann on the right--he's their US export sales director.

 3. Hameau DuBoeuf is a complex which includes Romaneche-Thorin's train station and also a large and wonderful wine museum. They get about 200,000 visitors per year. Quite the opposite of the typical "we're not open to the public" model in Europe.

 4. We tasted '09s-'11s, Gamays and Chardonnays from nearby Pouilly-Fuisse.