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2021 Côte de Brouilly
Guy BretonA relatively new addition to Guy Breton’s Beaujolais lineup, this exuberant Côte de Brouilly is flat-out delicious, evoking blue and black fruit and packing lots of mouthwatering acidity. Compared to Guy’s benchmark cuvée, the Morgon, this wine shows the dark fruit and firm structure typical of the Côte de Brouilly. And yet its silky tannins and sensuous texture are characteristic of Guy’s wines, differentiating it from the more earthy, tannic examples of this cru. The ethereal aromas and juicy freshness are textbook Breton and the result of many factors—an early harvest, cool fermentation, shorter maceration, neutral oak aging—but particularly of Guy’s fermentation technique. Many practitioners of semi-carbonic maceration allow the juice at the bottom of the tank to sit with the remaining grapes, whose skins impart more tannin and density to the juice. Guy, in contrast, removes this juice and transports it to another tank in order to give the final wine less concentration and tannin. It is still Côte de Brouilly and therefore has the structure to age nicely over the next five to ten years, but when it tastes this good now, why wait?
—Tom Wolf
Wine Type: | red |
Vintage: | 2021 |
Bottle Size: | 750mL |
Blend: | Gamay |
Appellation: | Côte de Brouilly |
Country: | France |
Region: | Beaujolais |
Producer: | Guy Breton |
Winemaker: | Guy Breton |
Vineyard: | 60 years, .65 ha |
Soil: | Granite |
Farming: | Organic (practicing) |
Alcohol: | 12.5% |
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About The Producer
Guy Breton
About The Region
Beaujolais
After years of the region’s reputation being co-opted by mass-produced Beaujolais Nouveau and the prevalence of industrial farming, the fortunes of vignerons from the Beaujolais have been on the rise in the past couple of decades. Much of this change is due to Jules Chauvet, a prominent Beaujolais producer who Kermit worked with in the 1980s and arguably the father of the natural wine movement, who advocated not using herbicides or pesticides in vineyards, not chaptalizing, fermenting with ambient yeasts, and vinifying without SO2. Chief among Chauvet’s followers was Marcel Lapierre and his three friends, Jean Foillard, Guy Breton, and Jean-Paul Thévenet—a group of Morgon producers who Kermit dubbed “the Gang of Four.” The espousal of Chauvet’s methods led to a dramatic change in quality of wines from Beaujolais and with that an increased interest and appreciation for the AOC crus, Villages, and regular Beaujolais bottlings.
The crus of Beaujolais are interpreted through the Gamay grape and each illuminate the variety of great terroirs available in the region. Distinguishing itself from the clay and limestone of Burgundy, Beaujolais soils are predominantly decomposed granite, with pockets of blue volcanic rock. The primary vinification method is carbonic maceration, where grapes are not crushed, but instead whole clusters are placed in a tank, thus allowing fermentation to take place inside each grape berry.
Much like the easy-going and friendly nature of many Beaujolais vignerons, the wines too have a lively and easy-drinking spirit. They are versatile at table but make particularly good matches with the local pork sausages and charcuterie. Though often considered a wine that must be drunk young, many of the top crus offer great aging potential.
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Vintage Chart Mentality
Vintage Chart Mentality
Trust the great winemakers, trust the great vineyards. Your wine merchant might even be trustworthy. In the long run, that vintage strip may be the least important guide to quality on your bottle of wine.—Kermit Lynch