2005 Jean-Paul Brun Moulin a Vent Terres Dorées Vieilles Vignes Beaujolais Burgundy France. 12% alcohol. Chambers Street Wines, New York. Lyle/Asimov bottle. $13.49. Imported by Louis/Dressner Selections, New York.
Deep red color, deep hue, restrained aromas of fruit and spice, incredible tastes of fruit, spice, earth, lovely complex tannins, light acidity, great balance, medium mouth feel, long, lingering finish. This is the best Beaujolais I've ever had -- a sense of great purity. Don't look for a big wine -- just sit back and think about how beautiful simplicity and purity can be. Just a delicious wine. 5*.
Notes:
Lyle Fass: "It is uncanny the quality, transparencey and pure brilliance of this wine. This has grippy tannins but they are so suave, sweet and ripe you notice them but the way you notice sea salt on Wylie's foie gras terrine at WD-50. Kind of like..."Oh yeah this has salt...cool. And it's really really good salt." This is genius wine and in the running for one of the best wines I have had all year. Jean-Paul Brun is my idol." LF via Chambers Street Wines.
Louis/Dressner: Beaujolais à l'Ancienne from Domaine des Terres Dorées. The Domaine des Terres Dorées is located in Charnay, a village in the Southern Beaujolais just north of Lyons, in a beautiful area known as the “Region of Golden Stones.” Jean-Paul Brun is the owner and winemaker at this 40-acre family estate and has attracted the attention of the French and American press for the wonderfully fruity and delicate wines he produces. Brun wants to make “old-style” Beaujolais and his vinification differs from the prevailing practices in the region. He believes that the charm of Gamay’s fruit is best expressed by the grapes’ indigenous yeasts, rather than by adding industrial yeast. Virtually all Beaujolais is now made by adding a particular yeast during fermentation. Known as 71B, this yeast is a laboratory product made in Holland from a tomato base, which imparts wines with banana and candy aromas. It produces a beverage, but with no authenticity and little charm. Brun, on the other hand, wants to make a pure Gamay wine.
Brun’s view is that Beaujolais drinks best at a lower degree of alcohol and that there is no need to systematically add sugar to the must (chaptalize) to reach alcohol levels of 12 to 13 degrees. So he chaptalizes minimally or not at all — depending on the vintage and the cuvée. His Beaujolais is made to be pleasurable — light, fruity and delicious — not an artificially inflated wine that shines at tasting competitions.
Only a minimal amount of S02 is used at bottling to keep the wine fresh and “headache-free”. Fermentation naturally produces a lot of CO2, which acts as protection against oxidation during aging; leaving some in the wine at bottling time also helps to keep it fresh. Filtration is also minimal so that the wine keeps its original fruit and aromas. Brun’s wines are not ‘blockbusters’ in the sense of ‘big.’ The emphasis is not on weight, but on fruit: Beaujolais as it once was and as it should be. Brun’s Nouveaus were rated as the top Nouveau of the vintage by France’s Gault Millau magazine several years in a row. Robert Parker has rated Brun as a four-star producer (the only other Beaujolais producers with four stars are in the Crus) and has written about his wines: “Proprietor Brun is a believer in using only the vineyard’s wild yeast, rather than the synthetic yeasts used by most other producers. His beautiful wines are favorites among purists.”
Sunday in the Beaujolais: Jean-Paul Brun from Terres Dorées Chatting with Joe Dressner by Cell Phone from his Cellar, September 25, 2005: Jean-Paul says they almost feel lazy and guilty. The alcohol degree is good, the acidity is good, there are no problems, all is advancing well, there is fruit and everything is coming together well. There's no stress, no crisis, no craziness, panic or desperation. Everything is just going well. Jean-Paul says the key decision was to pick later than everyone else. The grapes are mature and ripe, they would have been green if he had started a week earlier. They still have another week to go here and are taking their time.
Polaner Selections has something to do with this producer, but darned if I can figure it out.
Chambers Street: Moulin-A-Vent might be at the top of the quality hierarchy due to its legendary aging capability, rich manganese soil its very unique character. The aromas are very complex, the body is full and, of course, Moulin-A-Vent has tremendous structure which enables it to age much longer than most if not all of the other crus. Brun's version in '05 is dynamite. This has aromatic fireworks. Spice, flowers, black fruits, cassis and complex minerality abound on this nose. The palate has wonderful purity, deeply concentrated fruit and ripe sweet tannin. Great wine that has a long life ahead of it.
Regards, Bob