In 2013, Gregory Barbet was looking for a house in Beaujolais. Gregory's father, Xavier Barbet, helped with the search and called Gregory one day, saying that he found a beautiful house in Saint-Amour and that he should take a look. There was a catch: the house included a winery that was originally founded in the 1600's and fifteen hectares of vines, all in Saint-Amour. Gregory admits that knowing the amount of work that the winery and vineyards would require, he was a bit intimidated by the project, but in the end, the opportunity was too good to pass up. The family who previously owned Domaine de la Pirolette lived in Lyon and used to sell the wine in bulk. It was a special opportunity for Barbet because the vineyards are in choice parcels on the top of the hill, with little topsoil and the average vine age is 65 years-old. It's also an old winery, that needed work, but a beautiful space to make wine. 

Saint-Amour, although it is one of the smallest crus in Beaujolais, has the most diverse terroir. You find blue volcanic schist, granite, pink granite, clay, alluvial fans, and also sandstone from the time that Burgundy was under water. Pirolette has twelve different parcels in three main soil types. Barbet quickly took to converting the vineyards to organic viticulture, not using any herbicides, and in 2019, the vineyards are certified HVE or Haute Valeur Environmentale. They have big parcels in each soil type, so they are lucky to be able to vinify nearly everything by parcel. Some parcels are located on pink granite, which is typically found in Fleurie or Brouilly. This terroir gives wines with fruit and energy. Some parcels are located on blue volcanic soils, similar to the Côte du Py or Côte de Brouilly. Blue volcanic soil gives powerful wines. And some parcels are located on clay with flint which gives peppery notes to the wines.

Winemaking is traditional. The wines are fermented in cement with 50% whole cluster and are very gently extracted using the chapeau grillé method, which simply means keeping the cap submerged with a grate, infusing the skins with the fermenting juice. (Think of this like steeping tea, with the bag in the hot water, letting the flavor come out naturally, versus squeezing the bag, which will make your tea more tannic, the equivalent of punching down in wine.) After fermentation, the classic wine is aged for nine months in stainless steel. Eventually, they are hoping to purchase some large foudres for aging. To eccentuate the special terroirs of Saint-Amour, Barbet is bottling two very special and limited production single-vineyard wines from two parcels, La Poulette and Le Carjot, which are aged in cement eggs and barrels. Each wines has great purity of fruit and really showcases the diverse terroir of Saint-Amour. 

BOWLER E-Zine Issue ​3 | ​July 2021: Saint-Amour from Top to Bottom with Gregory Barbet

Côte de Brouilly has a special terroir: “blue” granite is laced with volcanic porphyry, or crystallized mineral deposits. This mixture, combined with the elevation (AOC Côte de Brouilly is confined to the upper vineyards; AOC Brouilly is lower, and far larger), largely accounts for Côte de Brouilly’s highly scented and finely—fine is the adjective that comes to mind—concentrated wines. Winemaking at Chavannes is traditional and simple, with little extraction in the modern sense (Pavillon’s wine could well be labeled the antithesis of modern extracted power). The alcoholic fermentation is done in cement vats, after which the wine goes into foudre for aging. The link to Thivin: Pavillon de Chavannes was acquired by the Jambon-Chanrion family in 1861. Its history became intertwined with that of Château Thivin when Yvonne Chanrion married Claude Geoffray shortly after the First World War; Claude had inherited Thivin, then a small estate. Yvonne took with her one-third of her family’s highly regarded vineyards as an inheritance, and later she acquired her sister’s third as well. Over the years, Yvonne and Claude added to Thivin’s holdings with other land purchases, but the couple never bore children. Yvonne outlived her husband, and upon her death in 1987 the sisters’ original two-thirds inheritance reverted to Paul Jambon of the Jambon-Chanrion family, along with fifty percent of the land Yvonne and Claude had purchased over the course of their marriage. The remainder of the Thivin holdings went to Claude’s great nephew, also named Claude. Nephew Claude further inherited vineyards from his immediate family, enabling him to maintain Thivin’s volume. The Art Deco wine label, created in the 1930s, was a product of that marriage. After Yvonne’s death and the restoration of the Chavanne vineyards, this label became joint property, and now it is used by both domaines under their respective names.

For more information on ​Domaine Duplessis, please visit Selection Massale.

Available in California.

Thank you to importer Louis/Dressner for this profile of the Girard estate: 

Domaine Fernand Girard is currently run by Alain Girard. He comes from several generations of winemakers in the tiny village of Chaudoux, located a few miles northwest of the town of Sancerre and directly north of the famous town of Chavignol.

He tends 14 hectares of vines in total, sells some cuvées to négociants and bottles only a portion of the total production under his family name. The "La Garenne" cuvée originally came from a 2.5 hectare vineyard of that name, a plot on a steep east-facing slope with a very rocky limestone soil. The chalky soil brings out the characteristic flinty, mineral and green notes of Sauvignon Blanc. On La Garenne’s well-drained, warm slopes, the grapes achieve exceptional ripeness and fruit.

Over the years, as demand increased, it became clear that Alain would need to blend his sites together to produce more estate wine. Today, only one wine is produced in much larger quantities than when we started working together in the early 1990's. In a crass move of commercialism, it was agreed to keep the name "La Garenne" since it was a "recognizable brand". 

Compared to those in other viticultural regions in France, most of Sancerre’s vignerons have stricter than usual standards of cellar tidiness and hygiene. It might be the influence of the local goat cheese making, which was traditionally done on a very small, artisanal scale, by people who knew the importance of a pristine environment.

The Girards have an impeccable cuverie and vinify with modern technology: a pneumatic press, stainless-steel vats, a temperature control system during fermentation, and an air-conditioned space for aging in vats and stocking bottles. They counterbalance technology by practicing old-fashioned vineyard work, where herbicides and treatments are used sparingly, and by never adding commercial yeasts to induce fermentation or add flavors.

Their Sancerre is everything one hopes for when thinking about the region: it is bright, lively, pleasantly aromatic, has zippy acidity but low astringency. It is a wonderful food wine that is as versatile as it is easy to drink.