The Pleasure Of Now Long considered Burgundy’s frivolous cousin, has figured out how to be just serious enough?

Words by Jon Bonné | Photos by Juan Trujillo Andrades

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t used to be so simple in the best of it, is now serious favourite , too, is part of prophet Chauvet, with his Beaujolais, perhaps stuff, a wine allowed to play that equation: pure pleasure disciples Lapierre and I because Beaujolais was in the shoals of Burgundy, turned respectable. Foillard and so on. Now considered, unfairly, a simple while creeping open the door Which leaves us in a comes an even newer wine. Here was a wine to to just a touch more pleasure, complicated place with testament – another drink with abandon, which is all while offering what Beaujolais. Just a few years generation coming into its what not just the Beaujolois Burgundy typically hasn’t: ago it was much easier to hold own, from origins both did but so did the Lyonnais, consistency. It’s not it up as a wine antihero, established (the Lapierre oceans of it washing through coincidental that the balance perhaps because it was so odd siblings; Jean-Paul their bouchons, to the point of culinary power in to think of taking the region Thévenet’s son Charly) and that the old joke – What are has shifted from Paris to and its seriously. new (Mee Godard, Julien and the three rivers of Lyon? The Lyon: slowly, begrudgingly, Declaring it to be serious was Antoine Sunier). Rhône, the Saône and the France is coming to embrace an act of practiced cool. But There’s now an honest-to- Beaujolais – stopped being the heartier, lustier, IDGAF- that narrative is now well goodness discussion of terribly funny. about-stars nature that Lyon, established, and Beaujolais’ in Beaujolais — study up on All that has changed, of and its ravenously unbound modern hagiography is now your Corcelette versus your course. Beaujolais, at least restaurants, represent. Its enshrined: the coming of the Pré Jourdan (both in Morgon) — and the maturing of its own sort of indie fair, Bien Boire and Stephen Durieu, who see Liger-Belair have rushed to en Beaujolais, is a sign that greatness in humble buy up Beaujolais dirt. this is no longer a happy-go- Beaujolais Villages, and It’s actually hard to blame lucky (if dirt poor) outback for Nathalie Banes and Julien them, or others like the farmers. It’s a serious place Merle, who see the charm in Graillot family of Crozes- making serious wine. the southern Beaujolais, a Hermitage, for wanting a Nouveau dare not speak its place only ever known for piece of Beaujolais. It’s a name. Some craptacularly simple wines. cheap and proven place to bad decisions, like But what if we lovers of have a bit of a land grab, and thermovinification and Beaujolais as meditative as much as it’s an unspoken tailored yeasts like banana- object went too far? After all, bit of gloom hanging over the bready 71B, are now we’ve already screwed horrors of the 2016 recognised for the damage Burgundy, subjecting it to (hail, storms, a vastly they did. Even Duboeuf, that our endless geek nature and diminished crop) the scene is piñata for the perils of hype, our fetish for detail (or at set for lots of old peasant land has quietly started shopping least the fetishes of those rich to find new caretakers in around its Cru Beaujolais as enough to buy it today), Beaujolais – potentially though that, and not the sucking much of the pleasure people who will farm it with global takeover of wine from it. Now Beaujolais is our more tenderness and fewer shelves with banana-flavored new grail. It has just enough chemicals, and who have no juice, was its core of the vague pedigree of interest in the ugly négociant- mission. Today, that earnest Burgundy — Burgundy’s based economics of the past. and serious spirit has spread prodigal son, perhaps, given They, and the rest of the beyond the ten Crus, with how Burgundians like the new Beaujolais generation, new evangelists like Mathilde Lafarge family and Thibault stand to help the world

Tending the vines, Fleurie (Moulin-á- Vent in background)

72 Noble Rot Noble Rot 73 At a wedding not long ago in Villié-Morgon, you could easily identify the winemakers because, unlike the suit-wearing Americans, they were sporting shorts and, when enough of their product had been consumed, doing splits on the dance floor.

roots back to the hills outside At a wedding not long in plain sight, perhaps not Villefranche, because the rise ago in Villié-Morgon, you fully acknowledged because of great Beaujolais and the could easily identify the Beaujolais is still guided by a triumph of the ‘Gang of Four’ winemakers because, unlike cool-kids club, and these is ultimately a triumph of the suit-wearing Americans, others are just a bit naturalism over they were sporting shorts apocryphal: the Suniers, or industrialism. Modern and, when enough of their Godard, or Anne-Sophie Beaujolais’ success, in the product had been consumed, Dubois, making stoic, post-Duboeuf era, has been a doing splits on the dance floor. Lafarge-like wines in her matter of taking power back (We’re talking about dudes gorgeous amphitheater of for the people. here.) In true Beaujolais vines at the very top of But the reality of fashion, they had no fucks to Fleurie. Beaujolais always has been even lend. For the moment, more complicated than that. And yet they can be damn Beaujolais has figured out It is a place that even today is serious when it’s needed. how to be just serious raw, embracing a side of Never mind Duboeuf, a sort enough, without abandoning (Above left) Courtyard scene, Domaine embrace a lot more of that place than or Pinot nature that’s more Hobbes of anti-Wonka, cosseted in his its base impulses. It can be Julie Balagny (Above right) Lunch with Lyonnais world view — wine Noir. Pinot wants to be loved; than Rousseau. Life in giant factory near Lancié. the free-flowing wine of the Julien Sunier flowing with abandon but not wants to fuck. Beaujolais doesn’t just thrive, Beaujolais could at least bouchon, and yet sit disregard, a balance that But is that enough to give it throbs – you can feel it in the respect the work of respectably on a tablecloth. indulges both brain and balls. Beaujolais a real future? It’s local gardens bursting with somewhere like Château des And for the moment we’re This isn’t to say that we worth being a bit worried growth (even with the hail) Jacques – never loved able to thread a needle with should abandon the cerebral about the naturalists who and the constant swarms of because its template was Beaujolais, to revel in wines nature of Volnay for the have been busy erecting flies and bees. It is a place rife Burgundian and its loyalties that toe a line between sexiness of Régnié, but barricades in every wine with vitality, even after a were to Jadot, but profound and delicious. In Beaujolais and Lyon, and our region of France. They have half-century of chemical appreciated for trying to other words, Beaujolais is a whole new worldview in made Beaujolais their farming, a biological elevate the craft. And nearly testament to the way we wine, is about the pleasure of Bastille, probably because holocaust in its soils. everywhere you look, equally drink wine today. The now. And you can theorise Chauvet, their patron saint, That vitality, I think, serious work is being done – Parisian has shifted to the and rhapsodise all you like, was so influential there. forces the Beaujolois to not far more than the Gang of Lyonnais. We can but Gamay frankly hits you in Today, ten thousand sans only spurn fancy airs but to Four gospel describes. Here’s acknowledge love, and a different, more aroused soufre wines can trace their shower disdain upon them. a place where stars often hide embrace lust.

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