Beaujolais Annual Report: Taking Gamay to the Limit

When I talked to friends after returning from my tour of Beaujolais this spring, many of them sounded disappointed when I told them that the majority of the new vintage in bottle, for the 10 Beaujolais cru and many Beaujolais villages 2022, reflected the hot and dry growing season. Clearly a large number of fans of this beautiful and fascinating region are actively seeking light-bodied reds with crisp acidity and bright red fruit aromas.

I am not knocking this style of Beaujolais, and a small minority of the 2022s belong to this stylistic category. However, during the last decade the only vintages in which the majority of wines tasted like this were 2014, 2016 and 2021 – less than a third. Has something gone wrong?

I don’t think so. Rather, it’s time to face up to the facts: the warming climate has fundamentally changed the wines of Beaujolais. The majority of recent vintages – think 2022, 2020, 2019, 2018 – resemble the wines of the rare warm vintages of the past, like 1976 and 1959.

At the time they were hailed as great wines and commanded prices that compared with the village and some premier cru wines from Burgundy. So it feels a bit weird that when this kind of wine is produced today it gets the thumbs down from some cool wine people, because it is “too big” or “too heavy.” Are they demanding that Beaujolais produce a certain sort of wine? Sometimes it sounds that way.

We don’t subscribe to the idea that the job of any wine region is to consistently produce a single homogenous style of wine. Instead of promoting standardization and praising recipe winemaking, we celebrate stylistic diversity. We also applaud those winemakers who develop new wine styles that have adapted to climate change. Isn’t that what winemaking in the 21st century is all about?

If so, then Beaujolais is a successful region that remains underrated by consumers in many wine markets, in spite of offering great value. Prices for the great majority of the wines described and rated below remain friendly compared with most other French red wines of comparable quality.

This report is all about how Beaujolais is reinventing itself in a new climatic situation that all the science suggests will become more extreme. This is the moment to point out that the gamay grape, which all Beaujolais red wines are made from, has a number of big advantages in a warming climate.

Most important, gamay has a much more stable and higher acidity (lower pH) than either the pinot noirs of Burgundy to the north or the syrahs of the Northern Rhône to the south. Heat doesn’t easily burn out the grape’s subtle aromas, either. This is wine science, not just my opinion.

What does that mean for the taste of the wine? We suggest you start at the top and try the Domaine Anita Moulin-à-Vent Coeur du Vigneronne 2022, the highest-rated wine in this report. It has enormous concentration and power, combined with a mind-blowing freshness and purity. These are the typical qualities of the 2022 vintage, expressed to the highest degree to create a perfect Beaujolais.

Winemaker Anita Neveu and her partner Guy Marion, the former chief winemaker at Georges Dubeoeuf, are not afraid of richness. In fact, she told me, "If the grapes reach a high degree of physiological maturity, then the wine integrates the alcohol more successfully."

Beaujolais’s most successful winemakers in 2022 all embraced the personality and analytical profile of the vintage rather than running from it. But some also sought a more delicate expression of what French winemakers now refer to as “solar vintages.” (Note the emphasis on increased sunshine hours, rather than higher temperatures).

Jean-Marc Burgaud is an excellent example of this, and he was forthright in his assessment of the vintage. “For me, 2022 is better than 2020 because it has the ripeness but better balance. It’s a really nice vintage.” And I strongly agree with this as a general assessment. 2020 is not low on acidity, but the acidity in the 2022s is more exciting, usually easily balancing the richness.

READ MORE EN PRIMEUR 2023 (PART I): A RETURN TO BORDEAUX

The Jean-Marc Burgaud Morgon Côte du Py 2022 is a wonderfully expressive example of this. A vast chasm filled with blackberries, but also wonderfully energetic thanks to the mineral energy from the volcanic soil. And this masterpiece represents the production from six hectares, or 15 acres, of vineyards, so you should be able to find it.

Another fine example of a producer mastering the 2022 vintage is Domaine de Vernus, founded in Regnie in 2019 by Frederic Jametton and Guillaume Rouget. They made their best wines to date in 2022. Three single-vineyard wines shared top honors.

Behind its charm offensive, the Domaine de Vernus Morgon Grand Cras 2022 is a powerful, very structured and precise wine. The Domaine de Vernus Moulin-à-Vent Les Vérillats 2022 has great aromas of forest berries and red roses plus stacks of fine tannins and a fantastic mineral acidity. Last, and by no means least, comes the Domaine de Vernus Fleurie La Dîme 2022 with its incredible sour cherry and cherry stone character and a structure that builds to a wave that sweeps you away.

Very much the same applies to the historic estate of Chateau de La Chaize in Brouilly, which was acquired by construction magnate Christophe Gruy in 2017. He set about lovingly restoring one of the most beautiful chateaux and one of the most beautiful 18^th-century winery buildings in France, and employed his nephew Boris Gruy as winemaker. The 2022s make clear this wasn’t nepotism, rather an inspired choice. The estate has 150 hectares of top vineyards, making it the largest family-owned wine estate in the region, so this is a regional powerhouse in the making.

The excellent 2022s from Dominique Piron look less surprising at first glance, but I’m pretty sure that for director Julien Revillon and winemaker Pierre Meunier 2022 is also the best ever vintage to date. As well as a row of excellent wines that lie comfortably within their established stylistic parameters there’s the first vintage of the Dominique Piron Fleurie La Madone 2022, which has flamboyant Amarena cherry fruit and incredible sensuality at the breathtakingly long finish. It effortlessly integrates 15.5 percent alcohol, which is insane!

READ MORE BORDEAUX EN PRIMEUR 2023 (PART II): A VINTAGE TO LOVE, BUT AT WHAT PRICE?

This is just once example of how the region’s winemakers have gained in daring during the last years. For a long time I thought that Mee Godard of Domaine Mee Godard in Morgon was the only winemaker to make wines with a major tannin structure. This worked extremely well in 2022 and she has company in the form of Anne-Victoire Jocteur Monrozier at Chateau des Moriers, which just released the Château des Moriers Moulin-à-Vent Vieilles Vignes 2018. It has great meaty and earthy complexity on the full-bodied palate.

Not every leading Beaujolais winemaker was so happy with the 2022 vintage. Yohan Lardy in Moulin-a-Vent clearly preferred the 2023 vintage and had already bottled all but one of those wines. With its extremely wide spectrum of red, black and blue fruit aromas, alongside a wonderfully creamy texture and extremely long finish, the Yohan Lardy Moulin-à-Vent Cru Les Michelons 2023 is certainly a strong argument for 2023’s excellence.

Meanwhile, scroll down through the notes for producers who hit the bullseye again like Chateau Thivin, Domaine de Mont Joly, Domaine Dupre-Goujon, Frederic Berne and Michel Guignier. Beaujolais has a wealth of exciting wines to offer, and although some might be hard to track down, the excellent value for money makes the effort worthwhile!

– Stuart Pigott, Senior Editor

Note: You can sort the wines below by vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.