welcome back, you're listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm your host Pat, Director of Spirit Sales here at Binny's Beverage Depot. Joining me again is Alicia. welcome back, Alicia. Thank you, great to be here. What do you do at Binny's? I am the wine educator for Binny's, so I'll be training our staff on the floor about all things wine. Learning us some wine today. Also joining us for the first time is Ben. Ben's one of the wine managers at the store in lincoln Park. Hey, Ben. Hey Pat, how you doing? Good, thanks for joining us today. Thanks for having me. This is a category, we're gonna talk about a category today that I think is a personal favorite of yours, right? Mostly because all French wine is probably counts as a favorite. Yeah, that's a good way of putting that. I think Beaujolais is definitely a wine insiders' favorite. I think everybody in the industry is kind of in love with it right now, and we're happy to see more people getting into it. Cool, so Beaujolais is the word of the day. Now, I only know Beaujolais from like the crappy stuff that comes in the plastic bottles once a year. Does it still come in plastic bottles? It did like 10 years ago. I think we're largely in glass at this point, and Pat's referring to Beaujolais Nouveau, which one of the reasons why we wanted to cover Beaujolais, as Ben said, it's a wine, a region, rather that a lot of people in the industry like, but I think it's misunderstood by much of the public, or they've only had Beaujolais Nouveau, and they think that's representative of the entire region. And so today we're going to be tasting through several different Beaujolais wines and talking about why they're different. And hopefully when you go to Binny's next, you'll be able to navigate that section a little more clearly. And it's a pretty affordable section too, right? Yes. Everything we're having today is under $30. And it's one of my favorites when I want to spend $15, $20 and have a really fun wine, something that goes with almost everything, frankly. And so it's a great value. And the other thing I love about it is when you're going to a dinner party and you have no idea what the host is going to be serving. You don't know the wine preferences of the attendees. Beaujolais is one of my go-to's, and it's disproportionately represented in my in my wine frame. The Swiss Army Knife of Dinner Party Wines. I'd like to think so. Would you say, Ben? Yeah, it's almost wines I think goes with everything. If you're stumped for a pairing, Beaujolais is probably going to go. It can go from the appetizer through the main course. No problem. That's excellent. Let's try the first one. Excellent. So the first one coming around is just our standard Beaujolais. And as we taste through the wines, we'll describe this in more detail. But when you think about the region, you largely want to think about three tiers, if you will. And the largest area is represented by Beaujolais, just the basic regional classification. These are often the least expensive. And from that, we'll move on, and we'll talk about those when we get there. But this is the largest area, largely in the south of Beaujolais. And I will add, we are in kind of the eastern central part of France. Okay, that was my next question. East-Central France, what kind of... Now Americans, we're of course obsessed with grape varietals. So what are the main varietals we're going to find in most of these Beaujolais? Sure, so Beaujolais is always going to be Gamay. 98% of plantings in the region are grape Gamay, G-A-M-A-Y. There is a little bit of Chardonnay, but we don't need to talk about that today. So it's always going to be Gamay. So this is your little party trick serving Beaujolais. And it's not going to say Gamay on the label, nine times out of ten. So you can be the one at the dinner party to share that. You too can be an insufferable know-it-all. It's my favorite pastime. Exactly. So let's go ahead and taste this wine. And we'll talk about what we get on it. What a soft and welcoming nose. It's just soft and fruit, right? Yeah, for me, that's classic Beaujolais. Just absolutely inviting, immediately appealing. All Gamay predominantly is going to be pretty red-fruited, light to medium bodied, medium to high acid. It's very refreshing and yes, soft wine. This is Domaine de la Prebende Beaujolais at 13.99. So excellent value, excellent party wine. But when we taste it, it almost has all of that red fruit that you might think of with Pinot Noir or you might think of with Grenache. And so if you do like those varietals, whether they be from California or Oregon or from the Southern Rhone, you will like Beaujolais. And it's a very easy drinking kind of, that's not a fussy wine. I like that connection to Pinot Noir. It's got the nice kind of brighter fruit, but it's still soft and round. And this one has a particular kind of plushness to it. It almost gets a touch flabby on the finish, but it's just an easy drinking wine. I could see this going really great with a lot of food. Yeah, it's just a region that I direct a lot of people to when they're looking for value burgundy. I get customers asking me for, you know, they want a bottle of burgundy, a bottle of French Pinot Noir at $15, $20. And I direct them, I think, you know, get a little bit more for your money at that price point with Beaujolais and, you know, similar profile. That was nice, but kind of simple. Yes, Beaujolais is not really, and you know, some producers might disagree with me, but it's not really the wine that you're going to sit around the table and discuss for hours and ponder. It's not very ethereal. It's very pleasurable and drinkable. I think we do have to mention, and we won't get too nerdy with this, but something that really defines many of the wines, not all, coming out of the region, and definitely defines this wine. And the next one we'll have is the method of production. And it's called carbonic maceration, or semi-carbonic maceration, two versions of it. And we won't go into the weeds, but just to say, a lot of that confected kind of bright red cherry, this Kirsch banana note that we get with the wine, which makes it so fun and playful, is a result of this method of fermentation. So know that that is something that's common in Beaujolais, and we really find it at the Beaujolais, and then that next level up, which is Beaujolais Village, which we'll be coming around now. Cool, let's check it out. So this is Guy Breton's Beaujolais Village. So our next tier, if you will, in our Pyramid of Beaujolais is the Village Level. Oh, so when I say Beaujolais Villages, I've been just sounding like an idiot pleb this whole time? Pat, you're not an idiot, don't worry. No, my second role in this podcast is mispronouncing things. So it's all right. It fits the narrative. So Beaujolais Village is drawn from some better sites, better land, a little more elevation. So what we should see in this wine is just a little more concentration of fruit, perhaps a slightly longer finish, which I think is more noticeable in this wine, and a little more kind of brightness and length. Initially, immediately on Palud entry, this kind of reminds me of some fruited Belgian beers, where it's got this raspberry cherry note that's a little bit tart and sour, almost like a very mild tasting lambic. Yeah, it's almost immediately kind of prickly mouth sensation with the acid and the flavors, almost even gained some citrus like orange peel. Yeah, totally. Yes, it's very bright and zesty. Again, that acid that Ben mentioned is why Beaujolais can be so food-friendly or one of the reasons rather. I would even dare say this would go with fish. Yes. Am I an idiot for thinking that? No. Salmon, tuna, yeah, sushi, I think Beaujolais for noon like meatier cuts like that. Imagine this too, just simple meats and cheese, just a platter, laying it out, good fatty meaty sausage, isn't like that. Those are all my favorite words. Yes. Platter, fatty, meaty sausage. Especially as we get into springtime and we're thinking about grilling outside and longer days of enjoying wine, this is one that won't fatigue your palate and will go with most things that you are serving outside. With that said, I did put a slight chill on this wine and the previous. I would encourage you to do that with the Beaujolais and the Beaujolais Vélage level especially. It also pairs lovely with spicy foods. Nice. Mentioned too, this is a favorite producer, Guy Berton. Like a lot of producers in Beaujolais does Beaujolais Vélage level but then he also does, produces wine at the crew level which is what we'll talk about soon. But for me, Beaujolais, I really focus on the producers a lot. A lot of producers will make wine in different crews at the Beaujolais Vélage level. If you find a producer you like, you can kind of stick with them throughout the entire lineup. Yes, and Binny's does offer several crews by Guy Berton, so please check him out. And he's also, if you were kind of an organic wine, natural wine enthusiast, I encourage you to drink his wines because he was one of the originals here in Beaujolais, which was really kind of the cradle of the natural wine movement, if you will. Is that right, Ben? Absolutely. That's one thing that's really taken off in that area. Was it Kermit Lynch's Gain of Four with Guy Berton, Lapierre, Foyard, and probably blaycon, the fourth one right now. Tévenet. I think so. Yeah, people were really kind of emerged as natural wine leaders and you're seeing really a new generation of natural wine makers going to Beaujolais for that reason. You know, one, they can afford vineyard land there still, as opposed to like Burgundy. But it's really kind of a hotbed for people who want to get back to some of the basics of winemaking. Yes. And with that said, you know, Beaujolais in kind of post-war really, post-World War II, they were allowed to release some wine early, which is where we kind of got that Beaujolais nouveau to increase cash flow. And we then saw all the post-war farming methods that really just did not help the region. And it decades later became known for pretty thin and zippered, low quality wines. And as Ben mentioned, another reason we're talking about Beaujolais today is that it really is going through quite the revival and the resurgence of this turn of the century. And a new generation is taking over and not making everything in that kind of carbonic and semi-carbonic way. But we're seeing more traditional Burgundian, if you will, styles where the wine is seeing some time in oak and developing much more kind of richness and texture. So a new wave is coming into Beaujolais right now, which makes it exciting. Very cool. So that second wine was what again? So the second wine was Guy Berton's Beaujolais Vélage. And what does that set us back here at Binny's? That is $23.99. Not a bad bottle at all for $24. That was a very tasty wine. All right. What's the next one? The next one we have is Chateau de Poncie Fleurie. And Fleurie is one of the 10 crews of Beaujolais. So if we're back to our imaginary pyramid here, we have Beaujolais at the bottom. Next step, we have Beaujolais Vélage. And at the very top, we have 10 crews. These are individual villages within the region that have been deemed quite noteworthy and significant in their quality, whether it be soil, aspect, elevation, and so forth, that they are producing great wine, these pieces of land. So there are 10 of them, and we do carry quite a few. Fleurie is one of those. And Fleurie is known to be quite feminine style, fragrant, floral, kind of a nice, elegant one of the crews. So let's go ahead and try this one. Again, this is Chateau de Poncie, and this is $21.99. I'm getting a little more darker fruit on the nose here, almost like a blueberry thing, which I didn't really expect to find in any of these Beaujolais today. I would agree. There's more fruit concentration. There's more ripeness as well. So the crews are largely located in the northern part of the region, higher elevation and more exposure to sunlight. So we are seeing riper fruit here. And I would agree, definitely some blue fruit, in addition to just kind of darker, bramblier reds. It's more floral notes to it, a little bit more spices coming through. Just the complexity is really becoming elevated as you get into the crew level. This is definitely the most complex one that I think we've had so far. There's a lot going on in this wine. I really like it. You're starting to get a little bit of tan and grip to it as well, but they're really velvety. Again, just very appealing wine, even though we're starting to get a little bit more structured, a little bit more classically styled. Yes, and classically styled is correct because we are seeing some time in oak on this wine, about 20 to 30% seeing some old oak. So again, that enriches that texture and development of the wine. So I think it's absolutely beautiful. And again, right around that $20 price point. So whether it's a weeknight or a weekend barbecue, it's a great alternative to maybe some more common wines you may pick off the shelf again, like Pinot's and Grenache's and Syrah's and so forth. Yeah, so many times people come in, oh, I'm having, you know, we're making a special dinner, me and my partner at home, whatever, and we want a bottle of wine and go with dinner, and we'll spend 20 bucks. I think so many people tend to gravitate toward those kind of comfort zones of American varietals from the West Coast for $20. Yeah, you can get a nice cab for 20 bucks or something like that. But I think this is a far more interesting wine, and it's providing more value for that same 20 bucks. I think you're getting a significantly more interesting wine. Yeah, these really over deliver. Whenever we taste them out to people, that's one thing that we always come back to is just you're getting so much wine for the money with these. That was great. One interesting fact to share about Beaujolais is, as we mentioned, it's home to the grape bridal, Gamay, and this really started because Philip the Bold of Burgundy outlawed the grape of Gamay being grown in Burgundy, and so it caused those that did Philip the Bold? That is his name, right? That is a lame ass nickname. He was the Duke of Burgundy, I believe. But in 1395, he outlawed what he called was the disloyal grape of Gamay and said, no more can it be grown here in the Cote d'Or. And so it found its kind of natural home, and frankly, it's better home in the granite soils of Beaujolais directly south. And it really is, for those that know geography here, it is right below the macon region of Burgundy. Cool, so we are on wine number four now, which is this? Correct, so this is Anthony Thevenet Cheynaas. So Cheynaas is another one of those 10 crews we are mentioning, and there are no kind of Grand Cruises or Premier Cruises in Beaujolais. So crew, this is it, just these 10 villages that have been set aside. So here we should see a little more concentration than that Fleurie. This was also made via carbonic maceration, so we'll get some of that kind of sour tart fruit back again, so I love your thoughts. Now you said, Tevinet was one of Kermit the Frog's foreign muppet friends. What was that story earlier? Yeah, so back in the 80s, Kermit Lynch found these four producers that were saying no to pesticides, saying no to heavy sulfur usage, and really embracing organic farming and low intervention wine making, and he calls them the Gang of Four. And people who really believed in the possibility of Beaujolais when a lot of the wine world wasn't really paying attention to it, and didn't really think it could produce quality wines at a world-class level. Yes, and we do have to mention while we're talking about Beaujolais, we have to bring up the name of Georges de Beauf and what he did for the region. And unfortunately, Georges de Beauf passed away this January, but he, in the 1960s, was actually the one to put Beaujolais Nouveau on the map globally and start to do so with some quality. It's a large negotiate he had, but he started to promote the category and really grow its reputation. And still, to this day, we mentioned kind of some Japanese food. But Japan is a huge fan of Beaujolais Nouveau and a huge importer of it. So Georges de Beauf really helped to raise the profile of the Beaujolais region and helped it become a little bit more of a household name. I got to say, too, I am absolutely a defender of Beaujolais Nouveau. I think it's a delicious wine. I look forward to it every year. I think it's a bit of an underdog in the world right now. It's really popular, but it doesn't really get the credit it deserves in the industry. That's interesting. I've always heard, you know, some of our more experienced wine managers kind of talk about it, so to speak. And I remember my very first year at Binny's, like, I don't know, my second week, I think, at Binny's in 2008. I remember one of the wine guys at the time coming up and I'm standing at the front of the store with one of the other managers, and he says, can you believe this? And he's got a plastic bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau. And he started bouncing it off of the floor. That was my introduction to Beaujolais Nouveau, was this plastic bottle that Mike Bach was bouncing off the floor of the store at the time. And so, I don't know, maybe I was set off on the wrong path there by Mr. Bach. There's probably some bad examples out there, but yeah, it's a fun, just easy drinking, super delicious wine. It was originally meant, you know, the first wine after the harvest. It's kind of funny you buy it and you can say, you know, six weeks previously, it was grapes hanging on a vine. Yeah, it's just juicy and easy and fun. I don't know about the plastic bottles, but. This is this wine on the other hand, though. Yes, this is definitely not Beaujolais Nouveau here in our glass. This is fantastic. This is probably my favorite so far. And Chez Noss is is not the biggest of the regions, but it most certainly has these lovely kind of floral, spicy, woody aromas. And then we definitely have grown in terms of our body as well. So we definitely light body before solidly, I think, into the medium body camp now. The fruit concentration in this wine is a showstopper. This thing is one of the fruitiest wines I've had in recent memory. Can you imagine having some spicy Thai food with this? Oh, it'd be so good. Yeah. I'm hungry. So bright and vibrant. And it's just it's brimming with flavor. And as we're speaking about low intervention wine making, this is all unfined, unfiltered, all these buzzwords that you hear of, no sulfur dioxide added, all native yeast, all of that. So to get that for $24.99 is a pretty impressive deal. That is unbelievable wine for $25. We're once again to the category here at the level that these wines can age a little bit. You know, a lot of people, you know, traditionally don't think of Beaujolais as something that you can sit on, that you put in your cellar. At the top level, some of these more full body crews, they really start taking on some refined character after a few years in the cellar. Interesting, I've never heard of people asian Beaujolais before. Yes, and some of the most full bodied crews as Ben mentions, they can be aged for up to 10 years. So these are age worthy wines. And in time, many are known to take on a little bit of that kind of pinot noir, burgundy quality to it, particularly those that were made traditionally rather than with kind of semi-carbonic, but they are age worthy for sure. Next up, we are going to the crew of Morgane, and specifically within Morgane to the Côte de Pays. And you might see this on a lot of Morgane labels. You might see some other more specific sites. So this lies within Morgane and produces some beautiful wines, again, with even more structure. Tends to be quite a full bodied, rustic expression. Again, spicy and warm with lots of concentrated red and black fruit. So we are recording this today on the first day of spring. And I think these have so far been pretty appropriate wines for this kind of transitional period from cold, closed in, dark. These wines just kind of emanate spring to me so far. Yes. And especially spring in Chicago, when you get the first day of spring and you're not really ready for some of those bright, high acid white wines or even rosés yet, because it just seems wrong when it's... Yeah, it's not sunny enough for rosé yet. Come on. So this is, you're right, a lovely transition wine. Another awesome wine. You were really pulling out the big guns here today. These have been awesome. A little background on the Cote de Pied. This is an ancient volcano, about 400 million years old. So all of these volcanic granitic soils adds great complexity to the wine. Fifty-year-old vines here. And Dominique Piran, who's the producer of this wine, has been making wines in the 14th generation now. Holy cow. They know what they're doing. Well, I think of this compared to the first wine we tried. This has so much more depth, body, savory notes to it, and earthiness. To me, it's amazing that Beaujolais, one grape, can span such a variety of styles. Yeah, it really is some impressive versatility with that grape. Now, the first wine we had was fine. That was totally fine, nice, cheap, inexpensive dinner wine. That's going to be good. Pretty pleasant. Yeah, totally. There was nothing wrong with that wine at all. But this is, I wouldn't have guessed, you know, as somebody who can't really and doesn't taste single varietals and blind and guess them and stuff, I would not guess that these were the same wine, same grape, same region, anything. And when we mentioned in the beginning of the podcast that sometimes I feel Beaujolais is a little misunderstood, it's because many have only had that kind of first wine that we that we had, or they've just had Beaujolais Nouveau. But these crews, they are worth the, you know, extra 10 bucks to get into one. And again, you will need to know those 10 crews. They won't say Gamay on it, and most won't say Beaujolais on it. You'll need to kind of know that those are their crews. So ask your wine consultant. Oh, so we'll say Morgon instead of saying Beaujolais. Exactly. Interesting. Exactly. But they're all in the same section in our stores, I assume. Correct, correct. You'll find them all together there. And so it's just some rules of thumb when you're going and looking at some of these crews, we tasted Fleurie and I remember Fleurie, it's a pretty large crew and so there is some variation, but generally speaking, what's hitting our shelves are going to be this feminine. So that Fleurie, feminine, floral, fragrant wine, whereas the Morgons and the Moulin Avent, which we're not going to have today, are a little more masculine, more full-bodied, more structured, more age-worthy. Others that you might see, René, Cheynaz. What are some others, Ben, that you enjoy? Yeah. That's going to be the lightest. That's the highest elevation site, definitely the lightest in body. I like the ones I like Cote de Bruy. For me, those fall in the medium range as far as body, but always displaying a lot of that good red fruit character, good acidity. Just like the whole lineup here, just always really appealing. If you don't know what else to open, Beaujolais is going to work for you. Beaujolais is going to work for you. So Beaujolais, we've mentioned repeatedly, is made from Gamay. Where else is Gamay grown? That's not a grape I hear a lot about, but I don't hear a lot about wine. I'm sitting in California, Oregon as well, kind of wherever Pinot Noir is grown. I think we have the possibility of finding Gamay. Definitely, again, coming back to, there's kind of a new generation of wine makers who have kind of grown up with it, appreciate it, and now are maybe even studied in Beaujolais and are now taking it back to their home countries. So some producers in California, like Pax, Beaujolais do some nice work with it. Interesting, climatologically, it likes a similar kind of place and climate temperature as Pinot Noir? I would say so, yeah. There's some good examples out of Oregon and Washington, California. Beaujolais being south of Oregon D, a little bit warmer, so you get really good ripeness with it, but it's really not a hot weather grape. I think it tends to be that kind of like a little bit cooler climates and cooler terroir. Yes, it's quite a thin skinned grape, just like Pinot Noir is. However, it is very productive and can bring you a high yield, so we see some great value with it there. But yeah, you will generally find it where you find Pinot Noir and where you find some adventurous winemakers as well. It's not one yet that commands really high prices, so it's those that are out to experiment and bring Gamay to you. Yeah, nobody's making Gamay for the money. Wherever you see it, it's pretty much going to be a passion project. All right. So I'm Joe Kostner and I walk into Binny's. I just listened to this podcast and I want to grab a couple of Beaujolais, but Ben is in the bathroom. So how do I navigate this aisle? Just boom, boom, boom, I want to grab like 3, $15 to $25 Beaujolais. Where do I start? Sure. So talking through some of the crews and particularly the ones that we carry a lot of, starting from the lightest, as we mentioned, Cherub and then moving into Fleurie, that floral, fragrant, feminine. Next, probably Brewery. This is kind of the Texas of Beaujolais. The Texas of Beaujolais. They have truck nuts. Well, I mean Texas by the size and perhaps variation of things that you find within it. Maybe if you know why, maybe Sandro Seth and the Northern Rhone is a better comparison. But largely, there's a lot of variation in Beaujolais because it is such a large crew. There I would advise that you know your producer because there are some fantastic ones and there are some pretty average Beaujolais from Beaujolais. Côte de Beaujolais that Ben mentioned, a lot of volcanic soil here, beautiful expressions, right in that medium bodied range. Then moving into full bodied, we have our morgons, then our cheynasse, a lot of kind of savory black pepper almost reminds you of the Rhone, if you want to go that direction with cheynasse. And then lastly, Moulin-Avante, we mentioned this as the most structured, the most age-worthy, kind of 10 plus years, almost Burgundian as it ages, and the kind of, more of the ripest styles of fruit perhaps. What was the last one we tasted? Morgon. Morgon, okay. And what did that one cost? That one was 22.99. Oh, man. So much value in here. I really like how this is just, I can't get over the fact that like how springy these wines are in character and flavor and aroma and body. They're just, they're not as brooding, I think, as a lot of people assume French wine can be, you know, where it's just tannic and just big and, and these are so inviting. Even at the top of that category, I don't think there's anything intimidating about these wines. Especially for those, if you have guests over that do like more fruit forward wines, sometimes they're a little scared off by the old world wines from Europe because they tend to be more earthy and savory and rustic and less fruit forward. This again bridges that gap, I feel. There are some very refined earthy savory examples, but largely it's very fruit forward and very friendly. So again, it's a very versatile wine and your palate doesn't get fatigued. There's pretty low tannin so you can just kind of keep drinking it. And before you know the bottle's gone and you're having a great time, but it's nothing that you have to have food with. You can definitely enjoy it just on your patio this summer. Well, thanks again for bringing these. These were fantastic. I'm happy to have learned a bit about this area that I really don't think I've had much of before outside of the plastic bottle stuff, so. Well, we're glad to bring you up out of the plastic bottle because there's some great stuff. So you'll find it mostly right near the Burgundy section. Find that Beaujolais section, find the wine consultant if you need help navigating the different crews. But again, look for the crews. I think the value is there for sure. But if you're throwing a big party and need something reasonable, those Beaujolais and Beaujolais Villages are a great option. Yeah. And as Ben mentioned earlier, this is a kind of a wine nerd's wine now, right? And so we have a lot of younger wine managers who are pretty excited about this region. Cool. Well, thanks again for coming, Ben. I really appreciate you coming on today and Alicia as well. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me. All right. So until next time, I'm Pat. I'm Alicia. I'm Ben. Keep tasting.