Brouilly

Alain’s 2016 Brouilly, from vines between 30 and 100 years old, showcases the fresh acidity and crunchy red-fruit aromas characteristic of this stellar vintage. There’s a hint of grilled meat on the nose too, which – combined with the fine but grippy tannins and subtle saline finish – will have you reaching for the charcuterie. Happily, in 2016, Alain reports his first “correct” crop quantitatively in four years.

Exceptionally steep slopes of granite and schist endow the best wines of the Côte de Brouilly with a complexity and minerality rarely found in those of the flatter vineyards of Brouilly, a separate Cru, which loops around the first. Les Griottes is a single parcel of vines, mid-slope (where cherries once grew, hence the name), whose southerly aspect results in a rich, ripe cuvée, with black fruit aromas to the fore, as well as a subtle but distinctive hint of caramel. The ’16 is fresher and more linear than warmer vintages, but no less seductive. The grapes were partially de-stemmed, and the wine aged in huge oak casks, some of which have seen a century of vintages. The winemaker at Château Thivin is talented 30-something Claude-Edouard Geoffray, whose family purchased the domaine in 1877. Drink 2018-2023.
Will Heslop, Wine Buyer

The excellence of Cru Beaujolais is something I have held dear for some time, but its ageing potential was first brought to my attention when I was served two Moulin-à-Vent wines from 1961 and 1962 produced by Camille Giroud. The freshness and complexity of these wines was simply astonishing and I have since made it something of a personal mission to return these great wines to their rightful place in the cellars and on the tables of the most discerning wine drinkers. The wines in our offer cover a range of styles; whole-bunch, de-stemmed, oaked, unoaked, elegant and floral, dense and structured. This almost endless variety and versatility is what is most fascinating about Gamay grown on Beaujolais’s volcanic soils. What the wines have in common, however, is that they all offer excellent value for money and great drinking pleasure.