Stéphane Aviron has been working the soils of Beaujolais for most of his life. He and Nicolas Potel went to school together so when the Potel family left Pousse d'Or in the late 1990s and Nicolas set up his own cellar and négociant business he approached his old friend Stéphane with an idea: to produce the very best wines from Beaujolais using traditional methods of vineyard management, harvesting and winemaking that would show each Cru in its very best light.
As a hugely respected vigneron and consultant within the region, Stéphane was perfectly poised to source the best vineyard sites and to set about creating a network of likeminded growers, vineyard workers and skilled hands to make the dream come alive. The wines can only come from 35 year old or older vines and vineyards that have not used herbicides, are hand harvested, sorted and whole bunch fermented and are aged in old oak barrels with extremely low levels of sulphur. Carbonic maceration is used for only a few of the wines made, Stéphane believes his wines can have structure and finesse if whole bunch fermentedas they do in Burgundy, and would have been historically in Beaujolais.
As a result, the wines are extraordinary. Vibrant, layered, complex and extremely accomplished, still Beaujolais, but in a new, exciting light
Vibrant red fruit, delicious mouth-watering flavours and a fine, juicy finish that is a drinkable and delicious as a Beaujolais Village should be.
Very pure red fruit expression, exceptional balance, structure, and a warming spice quality that helps to add complex dimensions to the wine.
One of the few wines to under go true carbonic maceration ensuring the fruity, floral finesse of the wine and the delicious soft structure are preserved. The fruit has to be in perfect condition for this to happen with out producing faults in the wine so it is a painstaking process but the results show here.
Brooding intense, black fruit, spice, hints of cherry and rose petals on the nose and a solid serious structure carrying the concentrated black fruit on the palate. A wine for drinking now or to age as proof that these wines can mature like their Côte d'Or counterparts!