Fleurie

France
Beaujolais
2023

100% Gamay. From 50-year-old vines on heavy clay soils with relatively little granite and quite a lot of the iron-like mineral manganese. The farming is sustainable. All vineyard work is by hand; the soils are worked only superficially, at most twice per year, to protect the roots of these old vines. Vinification is traditional, semi-carbonic Beaujolais style. The whole clusters are harvested by hand and fermented spontaneously with native yeasts in open-top concrete tanks. Maceration lasts around 14 days for this bottling, with a submerged cap rather than punchdowns. The wine is aged in large oak foudres of 80 to 100 years old for 9 months with only one racking before bottling. Sulfur use is quite minimal.

92 points
"Alain Coudert’s 2023 Fleurie “Clos de la Roilette” is a lovely young wine, showing fine ripeness on both the nose and palate and an octane level in this vintage of fourteen percent. The wine’s aromatic constellation is fresh and vibrant, hopping from the glass in a mix of red and black cherries, pomegranate, a fine base of dark soil, a touch of sweet stem tones, woodsmoke and a pungent topnote of violets. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied, nicely transparent to the soil and generously endowed at the core with ripe fruit. The wine has fine depth of fruit, some chewy tannins, tangy acids and shows a touch of concentrating effects to its constituent components from the drought, but will be a fine bottle with a bit of bottle age. Usually this wine is an utter charmer from the moment it is released, but the 2023 version seems likely to want a year or two in the cellar before it will start to drink with its customary generosity. 2027-2050. "
John Gilman,
View From The Cellar
May 2025

SKU/Code: 
DB0010-23
Product Line: 
Wine
Red
Varietal: 
Gamay
Farming Type: 
Sustainable