Red Burgundy & Beaujolais: Same Region, But Very Different Personalities
One of the lingering arguments in French wines revolves around whether Beaujolais is a part of Burgundy or apart from Burgundy.
The Beaujolais sub-region of Burgundy grows Gamay Noir in gravelly soils and its wines have a completely different personality than the Pinot Noirs grown to the north in what most of us refer to as Burgundy proper. Even though Beaujolais is administered as Burgundian, in most of our minds it makes wines so distinct from classic Burgundy, we think of it as its own region.
Burgundy, whose mere mention brings a hushed reverence to wine collectors all over the world, is in fact the home of some of the world’s most hallowed vineyards and the world’s most expensive Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays, both of which trace their origins to this real estate. They are so precious to us, we tend to save these wines for just the right moment.
Beaujolais is the region of bright-tasting red wines that bring more joy to more tables than any other red wine in the world. The red grape planted there is Gamay Noir, making a wine that typically doesn’t improve with long age. It’s usually meant for now.
In the glass, both red wines perform very differently; the Pinot Noir of Burgundy brings chills from the aroma alone, leaving one with a sense of anticipation rarely experienced by any other wine. A decanter is nearby—this is about to be a moment of celebration.
By contrast, the Gamay Noir of Beaujolais’ playful personality is just as at home with salami and cheese as a Michelin-starred restaurant. Drinking a glass of Beaujolais is a different kind of celebration, one enjoyed more often, informally, more in tune with everyday living.
Besides the difference in red grape varieties, the soils and terrain of both regions are quite different—the bush vines of Beaujolais are grown mostly in a series of granite soils, while the Pinot Noirs of Burgundy are born of limestone, clay and marl soils. Both wines are usually vinified differently; Burgundy wines are usually aged in 60 gallon oak casks while most Beaujolais possess no flavors of oak, accenting the latter’s fruity character.
Red Burgundy and Beaujolais both have the capacity to give oodles of pleasure, each in their own ways.
Beaujolais
“The first job of any wine: to make you want a second glass.”—Edward Behr, The Art of Eating
To give you a sense of old-school Beaujolais, which was usually intended to be drunk young and at cellar-temperature, Kermit Lynch’s description from his book Adventures on the Wine Route left me salivating:
“Beaujolais must be the most inspired invention in the history of wine. What a concept, downing a newborn wine that has barely left the grape, a wine that retains the cornucopian spirit of the harvest past. It even serves to remind us of the first time man tasted fermented grape juice and decided it was an accident of nature worth pursuing.”
All throughout the 1970s, every fancy restaurant I walked in featured at least one Beaujolais on its wine list. What else were you going to drink with Duck à l’Orange, Chateaubriand, Veal Oscar and Steak Diane? For months on end, a famous prime rib restaurant in Orange County served Beaujolais only! They had no wine list back then.
Nouveau Beaujolais Tanks the Category for Awhile
Just as millions of Americans were discovering wine in the mid-1980s (thanks to the incredibly popular white Zinfandel and Blue Nun paving the way!), Georges Duboeuf commercialized the local custom of drinking the youngest Beaujolais—Nouveau Beaujolais—and created, along with other Nouveau producers an international sensation. Each year on the third Thursday of November wine lovers would flock to their wine stores to buy these light-bodied charmers that signaled the end of the harvest and the beginning of the holiday season.
Edward Behr in The Art of Eating described what came next:
“Every fall Beaujolais Nouveau appeared in a flood. All Beaujolais began to be seen as a beginner’s wine, and among many wine drinkers it fell out of fashion, never to recover.”
This pre-holiday diversion was very cool, until it wasn’t. Like White Zinfandel, the reputation of Beaujolais was ruined by oceans of mediocrity and a lot of misplaced snobbery.
Mercifully, wine writers began to take a fresh look at Beaujolais after the outstanding 2010 vintage created wines of such quality they could no longer be ignored. Cru Beaujolais became a thing. (The ten crus of Beaujolais are exceptional sub-regions Cotes de Brouilly, Moulin-a-Vent, Morgon, Saint-Amour, Chiroubles, Julienas, Brouilly, Regnié, Chenas and Fleurie.)
Some low-intervention vintners, particularly in Morgon, were the originators of the modern Natural Wine movement. “I’m just making the wine of my father and grandfather, but I’m trying to make it a little better,” said the godfather of Natural Wine, Morgon producer Marcel Lapierre.
Beaujolais was taken seriously again.
A couple years ago Dale and I drove the length of Beaujolais for the first time and got a real feel for the land and its character. After descending from the plateau of the northernmost cru, Saint-Amour, I saw a sign outside a vineyard that said “Pouilly-Fuissé”, so clearly, we had now crossed into traditional Burgundy. They were that close to each other.
After sampling bottles from two of my favorite producers, Chateau Thivin in Côte de Brouilly and Domaine Chignard in Fleurie, we were completely smitten. I kept thinking once we got back home, we must expand our Beaujolais selection! We'll have to buy more wine racks!
The week after our Beaujolais visit we stayed in Lyon, and for the entire time, Beaujolais was the only wine Dale and I ordered. And they were all perfect for the moment.
Today there is a whole new audience for the red wines of Beaujolais. There is a small amount of rosé produced in Beaujolais which is very different in character from the rosés of Provence and the Rhone Valley. There is also a small amount of Chardonnay grown in Beaujolais. It is, after all, grown in Burgundy.
My Favorite Beaujolais Producers
Burgundy
There has always been a mystery to Burgundy. The Cistercian monks of the 12th and 13th centuries took meticulous notes focusing on the vineyards that produced the best wines, which evolved into the premier cru and grand cru designations we still use today.
Beaujolais has no such classification, and (some would argue) no such pretension.
I first fell in love with red wines from Burgundy very soon after I first began drinking wine some 55 years ago. Pommard was the first; those rich wines from the Côte de Beaune were very popular then, gracing many a wine list. In those days very few wines from Burgundy came from individual growers, but rather from larger “negociant” firms who would buy grapes and juice from vignerons and blend them together by region and sometimes by vineyard. Since they might have had several sources in a single bottle, they were often complex wines, with haunting perfumes and silky textures.
Wine critic Robert Parker, more than anyone, championed individual estates, and as the best of them rose to prominence, others followed, releasing wines on their own labels instead of selling them to negociants. Estate Burgundies had individual character, naturally, but were they as complex? At any rate, boutique importers, like Kermit Lynch, Martine Saunier and Becky Wasserman, introduced these wines to America, and America fell in love with Burgundy.
When more top vineyard owners stopped selling their wines to negociants, and bottling their own estate wines, the quality of the negociants suffered. That is why the gravitational pull these days favors the top estate growers.
Pinot Noir is a notoriously fickle grape. But when it lands, oh my, Burgundy is downright seductive, like a past lover that you never should have stayed with as long as you did.
While Beaujolais can be enjoyed easily and without reservation, red Burgundy is another matter. It often requires decanting, but for how long? A wise sommelier in a wine-centric restaurant in Beaune decanted one of the Burgundies we ordered, but not another. Somehow he knew the latter wine would perform best out of the bottle.
Geography of Burgundy & Vineyard Classifications
Classical Burgundy extends from the vineyards of Auxerre and Chablis in the north to the Pouilly-Fuissé vineyards to the south near the city of Macon. North of the Maconnais is the Chalonnais, a grouping of wine villages near the city of Chalone. The big-deal part of Burgundy is the Côte d’Or, (slopes of gold) where the most celebrated vineyards and estates lie. The Côte d’Or is divided into the Côtes de Nuits (hills of Nuits Saint-George) in the north and the Côtes de Beaune (hills of Beaune) which commences from the Corton hill southward to Maranges in the southern half.
Burgundy vineyard classifications are government controlled and are, from the least prestigious to the most prestigious:
Bourgogne, usually from flat sites, but can contain fruit from anywhere within Burgundy.
Village wine (Gevrey-Chambertin, Pommard) The grapes came from specific communes.
Premier Cru for exceptional hillside vineyards.
Grand Cru for the greatest vineyards.
Burgundy vineyards are often chopped up into small-ish parcels, with multiple owners of each. In the early 1800s, the Napoleonic code required that inherited property would be equally divided between the heirs. You can only imagine how a big vineyard could get multiple owners after generations of buying and selling, trading, marriages, divorces and death, with a typical estate today owning a few rows of vines within many vineyards.
It's fascinating to experience wines from the same vineyard grown and made by different wine estates to explore the difference farming and winemaking styles make.
To get the most out of red Burgundy, one needs a corkpuller, a carafe, a Burgundy glass and loads of patience. Then take your time and really savor each wine.