One great thing about the New Beaujolais is that vignerons are finally — or once again, let’s say — bottling wines based on specific crus, or parcels. “Once again,” because the lieux-dits of Beaujolais have long been well known in the region and beyond, though there was relatively little practice of bottling wines by their specific place, as is the case in Burgundy. Indeed, one of what I consider the most important passages in The New French Wine is the discussion of how Beaujolais’ history has been distorted to, among other things, erase this history of specific vineyards and parcels.
(Little hypeman in my head just whispered that I should add a link to buy the book here.)
The evidence of this deeper history isn’t hard to find; specific crus of Beaujolais, nearly 500 of them, were detailed by Victor Vermorel — one of the most important people in the region’s history — in an 1893 book, based in turn on the map made by engineer Antoine Budker in 1874. In either case, the region was ranked by crus in five classes, first through fifth. The rankings largely affirm some of the familiar sites today but also highlight others long since forgotten.
In bureaucratic terms, however, Beaujolais wiped away any such hierarchy nearly a century ago when it created its appellations. You can put whatever cru name you like on the label, but it makes no difference in official terms.
Until now. In April, the vignerons of Fleurie announced that they would ask INAO, the quasi-governmental body that controls France’s wine laws, to grant premier cru status to seven vineyards. This was a huge symbolic step for Beaujolais — to seek a hierarchy in a place that had largely defined its history on having none. (Which isn’t really true at all. Those AOCs actually created a three-tier system of quality, with straight Beaujolais at the bottom and the 10 “crus,” specific villages rather than vineyards, on top.) Because Fleurie was one of the 10 crus, its decision to carve out premier-cru status for specific sites would add another layer of presumed quality, and bring it closer to the hierarchy of Burgundy.
I was going to add “not much different than the Mâconnais creating premier crus a few years ago,” but it actually is somewhat different. Pouilly-Fuissé, as an appellation, spans multiple villages, while Fleurie is just one town. So the commune’s vignerons forging ahead on their own is more akin to, say, Volnay opting to create its own new premier crus without consulting the rest of Burgundy.
This isn’t a knock on Fleurie. The town’s organizers were nothing if not deliberate in their work, drawing on the new soil maps of the region as well as research into past practices and three years of tastings. The proposed rules for the premiers crus are relatively rigorous, too, including a clause that’s likely to appear in more wine law in coming years: one that limits the use of herbicides in less-dense plantings.
But do the results reflect the town’s longer history? By and large, yes. The seven crus selected are: La Chapelle des Bois, Les Garants, Grille Midi, Poncié, La Madone, Les Moriers, and La Roilette.
You can see them here:
Those familiar with the intricacies of Beaujolais will recognize at least some of these. Chapelle des Bois is one of the parcels used by Jean-Louis Dutraive, arguably the most talented vigneron in Fleurie. Roilette similarly will be familiar to fans of Alain Coudert’s exceptional Clos de la Roilette wines, and the fact that the Dutraive and Coudert plots were once part of the same estate underscores the linkage.
Poncié, too, will be familiar to Bojo-heads, although its prominence has diminished somewhat in recent years. And Garants and Moriers, if less familiar, sit directly between Poncié and Roilette and share similar soils — soils that have as much in common with the bordering Moulin-à-Vent appellation as with Fleurie.
Perhaps more pointedly, all those were ranked as 1st class in the Vermorel ranking and on the Budker map:
And the other two, Madone and Grille-Midi? This is where you can never quite dissociate politics from terroir.
On Madone, if you’re going to highlight Fleurie’s emblematic crus, it would be an obvious choice — the lone chapel atop its hill has become an icon of Beaujolais generally. And while there haven’t always been standout wines bottled with the Madone lieu-dit on the label, the appearance of bottles from Justin Dutraive (Jean-Louis’ son) and Chamonard, among others, has highlighted the quality of the terroir.
Why wasn’t it highlighted by Vermorel or others in the 19th century? Who knows. It’s possible that plantings were more scarce or that it was too high in altitude to ripen adequately, or any of a number of reasons.
Grille-Midi is a bit quirkier. Like Madone, it wasn’t classified at all in the 19th century, which tends to indicate that plantings weren’t significant then. It has become more prominent today, with very good examples from Jean-Paul Brun and Burgundy’s Louis Boillot. But it’s also one of the hottest sites in the the commune, with a broad southeast exposure. (Literally, the name refers to it broiling at high noon.)
Why you’d highlight a hot site in the era of climate change is beyond me. And if I was ranking Fleurie crus, I might give more credence to the ethereal wines from Les Labourons or Remont or Charbonnières or Les Déduits, or Jean-Louis Dutraive’s beloved Champagne. Others might have different lists. This is what obscure wine message boards were built for.
Which brings us to the key question: Does any of this matter? And, crucially: Is this a good thing to pursue at a time when people worry Beaujolais is losing its populist mien?
On the first, it probably matters in a small way — in that a move like this was inevitable for Beaujolais, and symbolically it’s a big step away from the Nouveau juicy-fruit era toward specificity and respect for terroir. It’s weird that Fleurie decided to just go it alone, but knowing how Inter Beaujolais has often operated, I can’t imagine how fraught a full regional project to designate premiers crus would take.
Now, is anyone clamoring to drink a Fleurie premier cru versus the Fleurie they’ve been drinking for a while? Doubtful. But hey, enjoy. And in fact, there is interest in some corners: La Revue du Vin de France, France’s biggest wine magazine, has been tasting wines from the crus and revisiting the old rankings.
It’s the second question that’s trickier for me. There is reasonable fear that, having finally broken Beaujolais free from its status as a Burgundian also-ran, such efforts simply push it back into the long shadow of Beaune. I’m less concerned than some, only because the prospect of a premier cru Beaujolais, devised by local vignerons, makes its own statement about quality. And there’s still a lot of work to do to convince the world that Beaujolais is the great wine of the 21st century.
This brings me back to a phrase Jean-Louis Dutraive used when I was reporting the book: the quest for the region to “finally find a bit of valor.” Valeur is a funny word in French, in that it can mean both “valor,” and also “value.” I chose at the time to translate it as the former, because Beaujolais for sure has long been seeking valor, after decades of taking an easy if undignified path. But the latter is also important. No one wants Beaujolais to mirror Burgundy’s irrational prices, but barely more than a decade has passed since its wines were deeply undervalued. So if Fleurie wants to take a stand, sure, have at it.
And, again, the prospect of a Beaujolais premier cru is not new at all. We have evidence that certain patches of dirt were particularly valued some 130 years ago, much as history has tried to obscure that. So if the conversation about terroir has returned in earnest, that can only be for the good.
As regular readers know, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about terroir in Beaujolais. Stay tuned for more on this soon.