Cuvée des Vignerons Beaujolais (£6.99, Waitrose) Not being a US teenager from the 50s, sappy is not a word I generally use. But its original meaning – pertaining to plant sap rather than something lame and twee – makes it the best adjective I can think of to describe the particular charms of the red wines of the Beaujolais region. Made from the gamay grape variety, the best beaujolais always has a streak of tartness and crunchiness, like a bowl of summer fruit with a few greener berries in among the truly ripe cherries. There may be pencil lead, too, and, in the case of this light and easy example from Waitrose, some pink bubblegum. Not the most appetising combination of flavours on paper I’ll grant you, but irresistibly refreshing chilled down on a summer’s day.
Château Thivin Les Sept Vignes Côte de Brouilly 2014 (from £12.99, The Wine Society; The Secret Cellar) If most beaujolais generally fits into the French category ‘vins de soif’ (roughly ‘thirst-quenchers’), the region is also capable of making more serious, age worthy ‘vins de garde’ – although always with the trademark sappiness. That’s particularly true of those wines made from one of the region’s 10 specific village appellations, each of which has its own character. Examples range from the silky-savoury Château des Jacques 2012 made in Moulin-à-Vent by Louis Jadot (£15, Sainsbury’s) to the racy, supple floral-pretty but deep blackberry-crunchy Les Sept Vignes, made from seven vineyards in the Côte de Brouilly.
J-P Thévenet On Pète La Soif! 2014 (£13.60, Roberson Wine) For years beaujolais was synonymous with the annual ‘nouveau’ run – that November dash to get the first crude bottled wines of vintage that reached its heights of hype in the 1980s. At the same time, a group of winemaker friends (Gang of Four: Marcel Lapierre, Guy Breton, Jean-Paul Thévenet and Jean Foillard) were conspiring to put beaujolais at the centre of a very different foodie fad. Eschewing chemicals in the vineyards and winery, they became the spiritual fathers of so-called ‘natural’ wine. The wines they made had an electric purity, a quality very much in evidence in Thévenet’s fun, unusual sparkling gamay, with its uninhibited raspberry juiciness.
Follow David on Twitter @Daveydaibach
