How Beaujolais Saved the Wine World

If you ask a wine drinker to name today’s most important wine region, you are likely to get one of these familiar answers: Burgundy, Bordeaux, Rhone Valley, Tuscany, Piedmont, Napa Valley, or Champagne.I would argue that a far less ubiquitous region is just as important, if not more so, than all of them. It doesn’t have the quality reputation of those mentioned above, but it is the birthplace of a movement that has made an outsize impact on the current global culture of wine.The place I’m speaking of is Beaujolais in the eastern part of France, wedged between Burgundy in the north and the Northern Rhone to the south. Administratively, it is part of the former but most of its vineyard area is in the department of the latter, and while it shares attributes with the two, it has a distinct character all of its own.Gamay is the star, having been relegated here after a couple of the dukes of Burgundy of the 12th and 13th centuries banished it from their prime vineyard locations (leaving those for Pinot Noir only). As an offspring of Pinot Noir, it shares many features: relatively high acid, low alcohol, a light body, and juicy red fruit. Gamay lacks sufficient tannic structure to age as gracefully as Pinot Noir; also missing are some of the more complex earthy aromatics. The best examples make up for this with its joie de vivre, a pure drinkability, bottles are empty before you know it.Beaujolais has always been the wine of the people — 4,000 growers, most of whom sell their crop to one of the 30 negociants, like Louis Jadot, or co-ops, with relatively few bottling their own wine. They like simple wine to go with their simple food, in huge quantities. Tourists in nearby Lyon drink bottles of Burgundy, while residents indulge in cases of Beaujolais.Unfortunately, that idea of simple wine was diluted down to its most basic form: Beaujolais Nouveau. Once a celebration of harvest, in the 1970s it was hijacked as a way for the négociants like Georges Duboeuf to make a quick buck.Grapes for Nouveau are quickly fermented and released the third week of November, celebrating the end of harvest as the first wine of the vintage. It’s meant to be consumed right away, often out of the barrel, lightly handled, but vibrant and juicy. Georges recognized a perfect opportunity in a certain American holiday, also celebrating harvest the third week of November: Thanksgiving.All of a sudden this barely finished wine was being heavily processed, bottled even earlier, and set on ships for the New World. The quality took a turn for the worse. The market was flooded with bad wine, and eventually consumers turned against it altogether. One reviewer in Lyon, François Mauss, dubbed it vin de merde. At the same time, ever more industrial farming techniques were being employed. Soil was dying, so more chemicals were needed to grow anything in what looked like a wasteland. Wines needed all the interventions they could get just to be palatable, and still they were mostly insipid, faceless wines only recognizable by notes of banana and bubble gum and sweet finishes.Not everyone was onboard with the status quo. In the 1960s, a chemist and oenologist, Jules Chauvet, wanted to figure out how to produce wine with no additives. He ended up connecting with four young winemakers — Marcel Lapierre, Jean Foillard, Charly Thevenet, and Guy Breton — who remembered the delicious, pure wines of their grandfathers, and dreamed of emulating them. This was the first spark in what we today call the natural wine movement. Other winemakers, fed up with the incursion of modern farming and interventionist winemaking, would visit, learn their ways, and slowly spread these new ideas. Retroactively, they were dubbed the Gang of Four, for their influence on our current understanding of wine.Regardless of whether you like natural wine, there is no denying its effect on today’s wine world. For generations, wine was the stuff of rich collectors and stuffy sommeliers; you could go lowbrow and drink wine from the grocery store out of a jug, but the industry was controlled by high brow elites, swirling expensive elixirs in their ivory tower. There was a lot of gatekeeping of the good stuff, which kept many people away, especially minorities.In the last two decades, though, the world has gone through a lot of changes. Boomers have all the money, but are aging out of their drinking abilities. Millennials and Gen Z have nowhere near their resources, are drinking less, and are caring about things like the environment and food sources much more than previous generations. This means the collector class is shrinking and the wine industry has had to pivot to capture new customers and stay relevant.Natural wine was the perfect vehicle to capture the attention of young people. Ignored by the cognoscenti as unworthy, sellers were forced to find a new audience. Out came a slew of cool labels, where the story of the wine, its production and ethos, were as important as what it tasted like. It was democratized, available for everyone to drink, now, and enjoy.The industry is scrambling to catch up. A decade ago if you described a wine as organic or low-intervention, consumers would run the other way, assuming a flawed, wild bottle of wine. Now, sustainable is the buzzword of the decade. Vineyards are being converted to organic viticulture at an 8 percent increase on average per year. More and more winemakers are making the investment in time, instead of additives, and sulfur levels are decreasing rapidly. Winemakers who’ve always made wine this way are now talking about it with gusto. Wine has changed: It is better than ever, more accessible than ever, and it started in Beaujolais. Unfortunately, outside of industry professionals (we call it cat-nip for Somms) and in-the-know drinkers, the category is still wholly underappreciated. To be fair, wine that is simply labeled Beaujolais, and most Beaujolais Nouveau, is still sub-par (but great examples like those from Chermette and Clos de Fief are out there). Yet behind the Gang of Four have come a cadre of uber-talented producers from across the 10 crus. Walk into any wine store worth its salt and ask the salesperson what’s the best Bojo is at the moment, and chances are you are going home with your new favorite wine.

How Beaujolais Saved the Wine World

How Beaujolais Saved the Wine World

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