Beaujolais & Its Ten Crus

Now for the cousin nobody took seriously — and everyone was wrong about. Beaujolais sits at the very bottom of greater Burgundy, close enough to Lyon that the Lyonnais claim it as their own house wine, and for a couple of generations the wine world filed it under "cheap and cheerful" and moved on. That was a mistake. The best Beaujolais is one of the great values in France, and among the most food-friendly reds on earth.

We've come the length of the region to get here, from Chablis to the Mâconnais just to the north. This part of the series is your orientation to the frontier: what makes Beaujolais different, the ten crus that are its glory, and where to hand off for the full trip. For the destination itself — the villages, the tasting-room welcome, how to spend a day — the dedicated Beaujolais guide takes it from there.

Why it's a different animal

Three things set Beaujolais apart from everything else in this series, and they all reinforce each other.

The grape is Gamay, not Pinot Noir — juicy, aromatic, low on harsh tannin, built for pleasure over profundity. The soil, in the good northern half, is pink granite rather than limestone, which suits Gamay perfectly and gives the wines their mineral lift. And the winemaking leans on carbonic maceration, fermenting whole uncrushed bunches to coax out bright fruit and a floral perfume. Put together, you get a red that's fragrant, supple and gulpable — and, in the right hands, surprisingly deep.

There's history in the split, too. Back in 1395 the Duke of Burgundy banished Gamay from the Côte d'Or to protect Pinot Noir's supremacy. Gamay simply moved south and found better ground. The exile became the home.

Beaujolais spent decades being judged by its party wine. Judge it by its crus instead, and it turns into one of the smartest reds in France.

The Nouveau problem

You can't talk about this region without the elephant in the vat. Beaujolais Nouveau — the young, fruity vin de primeur released with fanfare on the third Thursday of November — was a marketing triumph that flooded the world with simple, banana-scented Gamay and, in the process, convinced everyone the whole region was lightweight. It's fun. It's also the least of what Beaujolais does. The serious wine is everything the Nouveau isn't: structured, ageable, and grown in named villages. Mentally separate the two and the region snaps into focus.

The ten crus, the real Beaujolais

Here's the heart of it. In the granite hills of the north sit ten named crus — top villages whose wines are so distinct they wear the village name alone, no "Beaujolais" required. They run, loosely, from sturdiest to most delicate:

• Moulin-à-Vent — the "king," the most structured and age-worthy, the one that can drink like fine Côte d'Or Pinot after a decade.
• Morgon — dense, dark-cherried and firm, especially off the famed Côte du Py slope; the cru that ages most like Burgundy proper.
• Chénas — the rarest, rich and floral, a near neighbour of Moulin-à-Vent.
• Juliénas — deep and spicy, structured enough to keep.
• Fleurie — the perfumed one, all rose and red berry, the most seductive name on the list.
• Chiroubles — the highest and most delicate, light and floral, made for early drinking.
• Saint-Amour — the northernmost, charming and supple (and a florist's dream every Valentine's).
• Régnié — the youngest cru, promoted in 1988, bright and juicy.
• Brouilly and Côte de Brouilly — the largest and its steeper, mineral heart around the Mont Brouilly, fruity and dependable.

Learn three of these — say Morgon for depth, Fleurie for perfume, Moulin-à-Vent for structure — and you've grasped the whole range.

Why serious drinkers came back

The turnaround wasn't luck. From the 1980s a band of growers around the visionary Jules Chauvet — the so-called "Gang of Four," Lapierre, Foillard, Breton and Thévenet — began farming organically and making low-intervention, honest Gamay that showed the world what cru Beaujolais could be. They kick-started the natural-wine movement and, along the way, dragged the whole region's reputation back up where it belonged. Today cru Beaujolais is a sommelier's darling and a bargain hunter's delight at once — the rare wine that's fashionable and underpriced.

That's the frontier surveyed. For the destination in full — the tasting rooms, the granite villages, the run up from the city — head to the Beaujolais guide and the Lyon-to-Beaujolais wine trip. But we're not done with the wine yet. We've now toured every corner of greater Burgundy; it's time to meet the people who farm it. Part 8 is the roll-call of great domaines — the names that anchor an education, and which of them will actually let you in.