Beaujolais 2009: Tardive Take Two
09 Clos de la Roilette "Cuvée Tardive" 750 and 3L
One of Beaujolais' Longest Lived & Most Profound

In response to Monday's Tardive magnum offer came an outpouring of requests for regular-sized bottles. Today we offer 750ml bottles and a few rare double-magnums at the lowest prices out there.

Through a bit of persistence and a bit of luck, we were able to secure an additional parcel of Tardive 750mls - today we're happy to answer your requests.

And for you Beaujolais fanatics (and we know you're out there), we've also been able to secure a few rare 3Ls, Beaujolais double-magnums that take a long-haul Beaujolais to the next level.

The ANTI-Nouveau - Long Haul Beaujolais
2009 Roilette Fleurie "Cuvée Tardive" MAGNUMS
Beaujolais at Its Most Ageable and Profound

The 2009 Roilette "Cuvée Tardive" has the potential to be the most monumental Tardive to date. Roilette's owner/winemaker Alain Coudert himself compares the 09 to the 91, a wine that serves as the estate's benchmark.

I can't think of another producer in Beaujolais outside of Kermit Lynch's "Gang of Four" who has attracted such a cult following.

Alain Coudert and his Clos de la Roilette have provided me with two important experiences: one was the best bottle of Beaujolais that I’ve ever drunk - the 1999 Vendange Tardive; the other was my first andouillette, which I actually managed to enjoy over lunch with Coudert and a bottle of 07 Metras Fleurie VV. Crazily enough, I feel like I owe Coudert enormously for both.

More on the 99 Tardive in a moment, but first we need to pause on the andouillette, a tripe sausage that has always elicited fear and revulsion in my mind. When it comes to tacos de tripas, I’m down. But I head the other way when it comes to anything else remotely involving tripe. I believe I had consciously decided never to eat an andouillette.

It seems like 2009 may be the year that Beaujolais overcomes its perennial image problems and finally gets some of its due respect.

Indeed, from our vantage point, real Cru Beaujolais is at the tipping point. While the top wines have been sought out by wine geeks for years, this spring has marked the first time we've received so many inquiries from top Burgundy collectors who seem to have 2009 Beaujolais on their radar right alongside the impending 2009 red Burgs.

Burgundy Collectors Take Notice: Part II
2009 Jean-Paul Brun Moulin-à-Vent
The "King of Beaujolais" in the Grandeur of 2009

My second visit was with Jean-Paul Brun. The understated Brun simply said: "This is the best quality I've ever seen... nearly perfect."

Across the board, Jean-Paul Brun has crafted a simply superb line-up in 2009: The wines are concentrated, structured, pure and precise.

The gem of the collection, however, is without a doubt the majestic Moulin-à-Vent. This is the wine that marries perfectly the greatest attributes of the vintage, the site and Brun's unique winemaking style. Even after a week of tasting the greatest wines from this seriously undervalued region, this bottle stayed with me.

Finding Jean-Paul Brun wasn’t easy.

I was at Pierre Chermette just prior. I typed “Charnay, Crière” into the GPS, and fifteen minutes later, Voilà! I was in Crière. There are maybe a dozen and a half homes in the hamlet. I then spent twenty-five minutes trying to find Brun.

After a couple of phone calls, Brun finally pitied me and agreed to meet me in front of Eric Texier’s up the road. Once at Brun’s, I realize that I had missed the sign, which is handwritten and - at best - 2' x 1.5’.

Once there, though, the quality of Brun’s 2009 line-up was simply incredible. Brun says that the 09 Beaujolais vintage is the best quality he’s ever seen. The wines showed a level of concentration and breed that I’ve yet to encounter in Brun’s wines. And trust me, with Brun the bar is set pretty high.

Burgundy Collectors Take Notice
2009 Lapierre Morgon
Superb Ripeness, Density, Extract, Elegance...
Cellar-Special Pricing as Low as $19.50

Last winter there were rumblings that something very special had happened in Beaujolais with the 2009 vintage. We've seen stellar Beaujolais vintages in 99, 02 and 05, but these were not the vintages growers were citing. It was 1947 and 1991.

Yes, something extraordinary happened in Beaujolais in 2009.

The reports focused on perfect weather at harvest, high levels of ripeness and thick-skinned, unusually small grapes dense with extract. The lack of rain in July and
August reduced yields to as low as 30hl/ha, increasing the natural concentrations even more.

Following the guidance of Jules Chauvet, a biochemist and Beaujolais negociant who is credited as being the godfather of the natural wine movement, the “microscope group” sought to produce wines that displayed purity and honesty - the truth of the vineyard. In pursuit of this, they relied on native yeasts, minimal to no sulphur, working naturally in the vineyards, cool fermentations, restricting yields and picking late to ensure ripe fruit.

It's impossible to overemphasize how radical an idea this was in Beaujolais at the time. The norms of the region included manufactured yeasts with particular aroma signatures (bananas anyone?), pesticides, over-cropping, and chaptalization (adding sugar). These trends occurred as the region’s growers began to modernize and move away from the polyculture, instead relying on grape-growing exclusively for cash. Chauvet, who began making sulphur-free, spontaneously fermented wines in 1951, was in part trying to make wines in the non-interventionalist, old fashioned way with the aid of science. The goal was to produce the most natural, purely expressive wines possible and use science to help solve the problems and reduce the risk.

As such, Metras, Lapierre and the others in the group purchased the same device to observe their wines: the microscope. (Sulphur acts as an antiseptic amongst other things, so curtailing its use carries with it an increased risk that things can go awry in the cellar. They would meet to discuss winemaking and, of course, pull a few corks. "La group a microscope" was how the members referred to themselves.

Kermit Lynch, in his Adventures on the Wine Route, begins the chapter on Beaujolais (where Chauvet is a central figure) with the following: Beaujolais “serves to remind us of the first time that man tasted fermented grape juice and decided that it was an accident worth pursuing.” The work of Metras and the other members can be seen as a combination of two things that Lynch’s quote implies: one, to follow scientifically informed natural methods to express the absolute purity of the Gamay grape; two, to render a wine that is so lively and delicious that each sip fills you with uncomplicated joy.