Rock-steady crus
THE 10 crus of Beaujolais have the great advantage of being able to use their village name on the label and not Beaujolais. This counts for a lot when most wine drinkers only think of Beaujolais once a year on the third Thursday of November.
The cru wines ought to have more concentration and personality than straight Beaujolais and Beaujolais Villages. Some, in particular Morgon and Moulin Á Vent, should be capable of ageing, but most are sold young.
Gamay is the only permitted grape variety for the reds, and all are made by carbonic maceration. A little Beaujolais Blanc is made from Chardonnay.
The tasters
The panel consisted of: Peter McCombie MW, a sales executive for Bibendum Wines; Kate Thal, sommelier at Montana restaurant, London; Douglas Wregg, wine consultant; John Gilchrist, sommelier at Browns 1837 restaurant, London; and Jerôme Poussin, restaurant manager at Axis restaurant, which hosted the tasting.The tasters were led by Caterer wine editor Fiona Sims and wine writer Jim Budd. We discounted McCombie's marks from any of Bibendum's wines.
The tasting
There were 31 wines, so we divided into two teams. With only two exceptions, all the wines came from the 1997 vintage. The most popular crus that merchants chose to enter were Julienas, Fleurie, Brouilly and Morgon. Prices per bottle (before vat) ranged from £4.20 up to £8.50. The tasting was held at Axis, the striking basement restaurant in the new One Aldwych hotel.
The verdict
There were examples from all 10 crus. Of those with sufficient representation to judge, Brouilly and Juliénas were the most successful, with only one wine from each of these crus failing to gain a star rating.
Although there were only two examples submitted, neither of the Régniés impressed, and the case for promoting Régnié to cru status 10 years ago remains far from convincing.
Most of our tasters were pleasantly surprised. Several had assumed that they would be faced with a disappointing range of wines, which is a sad reflection on the current esteem held for wines from the Beaujolais.
"I was quite impressed," said Poussin. "I was expecting old-fashioned Beaujolais. Instead, many of these were very light. The producers have been working on getting a lot of fruit into their wines."
Gilchrist would be happy to put about five of the wines of his list. "It was not as disappointing as I thought it might be. I feared that the wines would be alcoholic and astringent. Instead, a lot of them were very typical - light, picnic wines. But there were some good spicy and concentrated examples from Moulin Á Vent that would go well with stews."
McCombie agreed. "There weren't that many duds, but equally there weren't many that made you go ‘wow'. There are definitely different characteristics fromthe different crus. I wish restaurants would think about this more."
"People are intolerant of experimental Beaujolais," said Thal. "You need to provide them with the essence of Beaujolais in the glass. I find that it sells consistently, with people looking for a light red wine that they can drink all the time. But Beaujolais tends not to be a good food wine as it gets trampled on by strong flavours."
And Wregg raised the question of value. "Because of its popularity, Fleurie tends to be overpriced. I think Beaujolais offers moderate value, but this depends on you knowing the wine and the grower."
Beaujolais tends to be a wine that the panel would sell but do not drink themselves. McCombie summed this up. "I never order Beaujolais in a restaurant unless the wine list is really depressing or I know the grower." n
