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2023 Beaujolais-Villages
Jean Foillard


Every so often, I take a sip of a “humble” regional wine that makes me question everything. With a glass of this in hand, I think to myself, who cares about grand cru Burgundy? Or, why would I ever drink anything else? Or, surely this is the bottle I’d choose to fill my cooler with if I were stranded on a desert island.
When I’m able to think rationally again, of course I’d pounce on a bottle of Taupenot-Merme’s grand cru Corton Rognet or the Perret family’s majestic Condrieu I write about in this month’s newsletter. And variety is everything, so I wouldn’t fill my island cooler with just Jean Foillard’s Beaujolais-Villages. But this kind of red makes you suspend reason for a moment and devote yourself to it, at least while the wine’s still in your glass.
After all, Beaujolais-Villages has no business being this good, but Jean Foillard is an extraordinary vigneron. A decade or so ago, Jean made Beaujolais Nouveau that he would expedite to us each November to meet the deadline of the worldwide Nouveau celebration. That Nouveau was outstanding and he didn’t need to change anything, but he had an epiphany that only the most ambitious sort of grower has: the grapes he was using were of high enough quality to make a cuvée with more depth and complexity, so he proposed taking his time to produce a Beaujolais-Villages instead of a hurried Nouveau.
Blending grapes from high-elevation, granite-heavy terroirs barely outside the region’s crus, and with a patient élevage that’s very close to that of his world-class Morgons, this wine is silky and seductive, with notes of rose petals, red fruit, pomegranate, and stones. With just the right amount of tannin and acidity, and lots of class, it is perfect for all occasions.
—Tom Wolf
Wine Type: | red |
Vintage: | 2023 |
Bottle Size: | 750mL |
Blend: | Gamay |
Appellation: | Beaujolais-Villages |
Country: | France |
Region: | Beaujolais |
Producer: | Jean Foillard |
Vineyard: | 20 to 55 years old, 7 ha |
Soil: | Granite |
Aging: | Aged 7 months in concrete tank |
Farming: | Organic (certified) |
Alcohol: | 13% |
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About The Producer
Jean Foillard
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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Where the newsletter started

Where the newsletter started
Every three or four months I would send my clients a cheaply made list of my inventory, but it began to dawn on me that business did not pick up afterwards. It occurred to me that my clientele might not know what Château Grillet is, either. One month in 1974 I had an especially esoteric collection of wines arriving, so I decided to put a short explanation about each wine into my price list, to try and let my clients know what to expect when they uncorked a bottle. The day after I mailed that brochure, people showed up at the shop, and that is how these little propaganda pieces for fine wine were born.—Kermit Lynch