The Beaujolais region
The Beaujolais region lays between the Mâconnais to the north, and to the south the city of Lyons. It is an intensely pretty region, with rolling hills gently sloping down to the Saône valley. The soil is mainly granitic and quite poor. The wines are made from the Gamay grape, which really comes into its own on the granitic soils here.
The Beaujolais Crus are the best Beaujolais wines. The ten Beaujolais Cru appellations spread over the most northerly part of the region. In most cases the names reflect the name of a village at or near the centre of the appellation such as Villié-Morgon for Morgon. The Cru wines age for longest of all Beaujolais wines, especially Morgon and Moulin-à-Vent, some of which are drunk well beyond ten years, while Crus such as Fleurie or Brouilly are best drunk for their freshness and finesse within five years of age.
Moulin-à-Vent and Morgon are famous for their ability to age. The character of the wines changes quite significantly after a couple of years, and typically, as the Cru ages, it will lose some of the fresh fruity grapiness of its youth, and take on some of the characteristics of red Burgundy wines made using the Pinot Noir grape.
This extract from Forbes's Nick Passmore tells it all. "That evening I had dinner at Le Cep, a wonderful restaurant in Fleurie [which we can only recommend]. At the next table a young vigneron was entertaining a buyer from Holland. It was well after midnight, and they had obviously enjoyed several wines already. When the producer pulled out his big showcase wine, a magnum of 1961 Morgon, the client was so impressed that he insisted on sharing it with us. It was magnificent, soft and velvety with good, intact structure, and you could still taste the fruit. At 40 years old this wine wasn't finished yet and showed the remarkable elegance and sophistication of which Beaujolais, under the right circumstances and the right hands, is capable".
