Bring on the Beaujolais!

No surprise, the most common question I field after tasting 100-ish wines at something like the Society of Wine Educator’s conference: What were your faves? Believe or not, a few stunners really do shine in my memory. Over the next couple of days, I’ll quickly highlight them here…

Stunner #2: Georges Duboeuf Julienas Chateau des Capitans, Beaujolais, France ($17-$20)

We were lucky, lucky indeed to breakfast with the godfather of Beaujolais, Georges Duboeuf himself, at the Society of Wine Educators conference.  Well, breakfast in the sense that 6 glasses of Beaujolais constitute breakfast, but anyway…

Breakfast Beaujolais with Duboeuf!

Mr. Dubeouf’s wines are practically synonymous with Beaujolais; check out the “France” section in your wine shop, almost guaranteed you’ll see ’em.

Juicy Julienas

The stand out Breakfast Beaujolais he poured was the Julienas Chateau des Capitans. It is rich and perfumed with roasted coffee on the nose and a lush blackberry and pepper palate.  The texture is chewy and full.  This would be great wine with grilled poultry or maybe even pizza and pasta.  At under $20, it’s a steal.

Time to Geek Out – Bit o’ Background on Beaujolais:  This French wine region is located just below Burgundy, kinda the east side of France.  99% of the wines are red, made from the Gamay grape, and are typically light bodied and fruity.  If you’ve had a Beaujolais and been disappointed, try again and look for the word “Cru” on the label.  In short, this means the wine came from one of 10 specific areas inside Beaujolais, and are held to higher production standards. They rock.   And they are often a great value.

Just to make you crazy, you typically won’t see “Beaujolais” on the label, but rather the name of the Cru: Saint-Amour, Juliénas, Chénas, Moulin-à-Vent, Fleurie, Chiroubles, Morgon, Régnié, Brouilly or Côte de Brouilly.  Don’t ask me why, it’s a French thing.  But do ask your wine shop to point you in the right direction; wine geeks can get pretty nerdy about Cru Beaujolais, for good reason.

Related articles

• Justice for Beaujolais (pinardman.wordpress.com)
• 2011 Cru Beaujolais (petertryba.wordpress.com)