Historically, Beaujolais Crus were famous for their ageing potential. But then the fashion of Beaujolais nouveau made us forget this, + the makers were tempted to make more and more “easy to drink wines”, with high yielding etc.
But now if you choose the good crus at serious producers (many of them are already quoted above) yes for sure it will age!
I have never personally experienced that. Beaujolais is my personal “Donnhoff doesn’t age” wine.
See here for example: TN: Monthly Bojo Night: Older Moulin-à-Vent (+ one Fleurie) and two older Vouvrays - WINE TALK - WineBerserkers or (a little younger) TN: Five 2005 Morgons - WINE TALK - WineBerserkers
There are some Beaujolais that really require bottle age in my view, many Moulin-à-Vents made in the Burgundian style for example: Château des Jacques, Château du Moulin-à-Vent, Domaine Labruyère, Thibault Liger-Belair, etc. Especially the Ch. des Jacques and the Ch. du Moulin-à-Vent are marked by oak in their youth, but they do age well and the oak influence gets more subtle with age (can’t say yet on a longer term scale about Ch. du Moulin-à-Vent, but I’ve seen the Ch. des Jacques wines greatly improved with 8-10 years of bottle age).
On the other hand, I think some other wines don’t need to be aged for a long time: Marcel Lapierre’s Morgon (100% maceration carbonique by the way), the Fleuries from Dutraive, the wines of Julien Sunier, most wines from Domaine du Vissoux for example. They’re accessible young and they live off their clear and precise fruit. They may hold for ten or more years, but I haven’t seen much improvement to be honest.
Oldest Beaujolais I’ve had was a 1962 Brouilly from Maison Leroy. It was drinkable, but it wasn’t a revelation.
It’s misleading to say Lapierre Morgon undergoes 100% carbonic maceration. He does semicarbonic on all of the grapes, but the grapes are crushed after a short period, allowing for yeast fermentation to take over.
What a coincidence that this image was put up on Jadot’s FB page about 4 hours ago.
Caption states: “Drinking very well yesterday for lunch!”
Well drat, I just had my last 2002 a few weeks ago. Like Jay, I think the rest of my stash starts from 2005. I’ve been drinking them since the late 1990’s but only started to put them away in 2002. Then came 2003, and I wasn’t convinced by my test bottles in 2004 – what was I thinking? But in the next year or three, we should check in on some 2005 or 2006’s when you’re down in the City. As a general rule, I’ve found 2006 early developing and underwhelming, but, like all generalizations, there are exceptions. Foillard did extremely well, and I think Coudert did, too. The regular was fantastic, and, as I say, I’m just getting to the tardive, which autocorrect wants to turn into “tar dive.”
Of the top producers, who apart from Jadot and Brun do traditional Burgundian elevage?
great comments from everyone…
a couple years back peter weygandt mentioned having dinner with pierre and marie chermette at their place. pierre disappeared to his cellar and brought back a 1978 MaV that he opened for dinner. the wine hadn’t been moved since 1978 (33 years at the time) and, according to peter, was off-the-charts good. i’m not sure i have the patience to wait 30+ years on beaujolais, but this gave me hope!
I wonder how that wine was made?
I’ve had some mid 2000s Foillards recently that were still climbing. I think there is producer variability, but the question is whether or not the wait is worth it. It is a bit of a mixed result. Would be really interesting to do a vertical of Foillard or Lapierre or something of that ilk that has lineage. I have been holding back on opening too many recent vintages of late.
I remember in the mid 90s avoiding Beaujolais that were being offered. Not for me. Then I had an aged version and had an epiphany. I still own very little but think of it highly.
Jason
I’ve had some delicious aged Beaujolais, and have some (not much) 05 and 09 in storage. I’d love to cellar greater quantities of “modest” wines–Beaujolais, Barbera, Muscadet, etc–but I have quite limited storage that, for better or for worse, I invariably devote to relatively “grander” wines.
Does this lead you to purchase a fair amount at auction? Otherwise, how do manage with wines that need so much more time to come around?
What it leads me to do is try to mix my wine purchases between wines that need time, aged wines that are ready (through auction or otherwise), wines that need less time or that I’m happy to drink young (Champagne, White Burg, Chablis), and more inexpensive daily drinker wines that I’m happy to drink young (Beaujolais, etc.). I also drink wine far less frequently than many on this board, which allows me to be a bit more patient.