Beaujolais Nouveau Day is marked in France on the third Thursday in November with fireworks, music and festivals. Under French law, the wine is released at 12:01 a.m., just weeks after the wine's grapes have been harvested. Parties are held throughout the country and further afield to celebrate the first wine of the season. Because of its seasonality and food flexibility, Beaujolais Nouveau is the ideal wine for holiday celebrations.
Most (if not all) Beaujolais Nouveau is made via a method known as carbonic maceration, in which whole grapes are fermented quickly using commercial yeast, creating a fruity, pleasant enough wine that lacks complexity. That’s not what we have here.
Jean-Paul Brun started Terres Dorées in 1979 with a mere 4 hectares of vines in Charnay in the southern Beaujolais, an area which is slightly warmer and more limestone-driven versus the more renowned granite-rich cru villages in the northern Beaujolais. Today, the Charnay estate is around 30 acres, but with an additional 15 hectares farmed in the crus.
The farming in Charnay is organic, the cru parcels are farmed sustainably, and the soils are not worked. Harvest is by hand and of well-ripened but not over-ripened fruit, so alcohol levels are generally modest. The Terres Dorées L'Ancien vines are Jean Paul's oldest vines at 40-60 years old. There is no carbonic maceration (true for all his Gamays). The bunches are destemmed, the fruit crushed and fermented with native yeasts in tank, notably with no chaptalization; it is aged briefly and bottled in time to land in the states in November.
We were able to get only 36 bottles of Jean-Paul Brun’s superior quality Beaujolais Nouveau. The wine will be arriving this week…
2019 Terres Dorées Beaujolais Noveau ‘l’Ancien’
Warren Wine to Go Price $19.95
