I just got my shipment the other day, it had one 2024 Walter Scott Aligoté X-Novo in it. I was going to let it settle for a year, but probably could be strong armed in the not so distant future if you want to taste it yourself.
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Can they carbonate that for @Frank_Murray_III ?
This bring me up a new question : can Gamay make great wine ?
Yes.
Next, please.
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Great, or excellent? Great implies DRC or Petrus or Yquem ( I could go on but you get the idea) level.
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In my terminology, excellent is above great.
And everything is very subjective. Pétrus and Yquem are quite different from a Gamay, but DRC is close enough for comparative purposes; I don’t see it impossible for me to favor a great Cru Beaujolais over DRC in a blind tasting.
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We sell Bichot’s Aligote in the shop, for $18 US. For those customers looking to try something different I turn them on to that. Most come back and are impressed with the style.
My guess is : depends who makes it and also if the drinker likes Gamay.
I for one am pleased to read about this exciting new winemaking process:
Do you think the latte is made with whole or oat milk?
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Not even slightly- a great Beaujolais will always be better than an inferior bottle from the DRC, and sadly such bottles are not even slightly unknown, wine being wine.
My one encounter with the William Kelley 2021 was undoubtedly with a great wine, fully in the D’Auvenay class.
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It’s a very similar grape to Pinot Noir. With enough age, the varietal distinction disappears. That leaves terroir and winemaking. A lot of peoples’ poor views of Gamay is from mediocre winemaking.
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Interest comments and opinions. May I repeat : depends who makes it and also …
Otto…very interesting and keen comments. There is a great Cru Beaujolais.and then there is also a Nouvelle Beaujolais.
In the good old days, the DRC importer normally do a presale tasting of all the reds.
They served and placed each glass ( around 2 1/2 once ) of each of their wines a paper sheet with each of names of their G-crus - for example RC, LT. Then they placed the glass of RC on the spot - marked RC…to make sure …that each of the wines taste different.
So if Peter Chiu prefer to drink a wine young ,there is a good chance that he likes the Beaujolais …better - special if they serve them blind. .
Those are not clones, but families of selections, much as so-called “Pinot fin” refers to a wide range of different Pinot selections that share similar morphology (small berries and bunches, open clusters) but which are not genetically identical.
“Aligoté doré” just refers to the tendency of ripe bunches of aligoté to go golden/red colored, as other varieties such as Roussanne do at maturity. And the various highly productive clones tend never to attain this degree of maturity, with the berries remaining green and unripe. Ripe Aligoté looks like this:
There are a few high quality massale selections of Aligoté, some of them proprietary, that produce small berries and high quality wines, so there are some new plantings of this material. But the majority of Aligoté matching this description along the Côte d’Or is to be found in old pre-clonal vineyards. Since even low-yielding Aligoté tends to remain productive over time, and it has historically been worth so little, re-planting has tended to be an economically marginal proposition, so there is quite a lot of old vine aligoté intact in the regional AOCs.
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Thanks for posting William-K.
For those who are interesting - please note J. Morris talks about the grape : Aligote on page 62 of his book - the 2nd Edition - and the grape : Gamay on page 67.
pte ponpe a
Honestly there just isn’t very much Aligote planted here in Oregon. I can think of five vineyards that are growing Aligote and all of them have been planted this decade. I think Ken’s Aligote comes from an older Riesling vineyard that was grafted to Aligote.
Here is the part of text written by J. Morris - on page 67 of his Book - 2nd Edition :
**** Shortly after the first mention of Pinot came that celebrated decree of Duke Philip which banned the bad and disloyal grape Gamay in 1395 in favor of Pinot.
It is worth quoting the paragraph in full because he really was not terribly keen at all on the Beaujolais grape … Or to put it in modern English : *Several of our subjects have planted vines of the very bad and disloyal plant called Gamay, from which had plant comes a great abundance of wine, and the great majority of these terrible wines have left in ruins or desert the good place where good wine was made. And this Gamay wine is of such a nature that it is extremely harmful to human being, can even infect them with serious diseases because the aforesaid wine which comes from the aforesaid plant with its aforesaid nature is full of very great and horrible bitterness become total sticking. ***
What does this mean? Isn’t clone just defined as a “family of selection”?
But am I correct that Aligoté Vert does not turn golden / russet even at full maturity? I’ve understood that the producers who farm both Aligoté Vert and Doré say that in vineyards farmed identically Vert stays greenish-yellow, while Doré attains a more deeper golden yellow hue. To my understanding the grapes that remain green-hued are not unripe.