The Beaujolais Challenge - Chenas and Saint-Amour

Been a while, huh? I haven't written up anything on Beaujolais since August I think. Partly because I figured you'd appreciate it if I bundled the rest into one or two posts, and partly because I just hadn't found a few of the wines that I wanted to find. Maybe I'm prejudiced, but I just didn't want to fall back on Georges DuBouef for an example of Saint-Amour.

Then one day I wandered into Moore Brothers in Mannhattan, the place with the padded jackets by the front door for customers to wear while shopping in the sub 56 degree chill. Lots of interesting stuff in there, from both big-name and obscure producers. And there's usually something to open to taste in the back, if you ask. So I'm perusing the shelves and there are three Beaujolais wines, one a Beaujolais, one a Chenas, and the last a Saint-Amour. And what's more, these wines are made by Jean-Francois Trichard, a producer I've seen David McDuff, a dude with pretty darn good taste, crow about on a couple of occasions. Sold, to the Brooklynguy in the padded jacket.

Chenas and Saint-Amour are, with Julienas, the northernmost Beaujolais Crus. Totaling fewer than 750 hectares, these are small appellations. Be that as it may, they are known for light but beautifully perfumed and fruity red wines. Most growers traditionally sold their grapes to negociant producers, so a grower like Trichard stands out for making wine from his own grapes.

Not sure why this is (plummeting dollar?), but the 2006 Saint-Amour was a bit more expensive than the 2005 Chenas. The otherwise very helpful sales guy at Moore Brothers was not able to tell me if there are differences in technique that lead the Saint-Amour to cost more. The Chenas was, to my tastes, a below-average example of a 2005 Cru Beaujolais, nothing to seek out again, and the Saint-Amour was memorable, and a definite re-buy. Strange that two wines from the same producer achieved such starkly different levels of quality.

2005 Trichard Chenas, $16 (Moore Brothers).
Bright cherry red with watery rims, this wine had some tomato leafiness mixed in with the red raspberry aromas. This follows through on the palate, which is not all that well balanced, and finishes with an aspartame sensation. After some time open the raspberry was more pronounced, but this wine was a bit disjointed throughout.

2006 Trichard Saint-Amour, $19.50 (Moore Brothers).
A whole different story here. First of all, this wine honestly was amoungst the most beautifully colored I have ever seen. Don't care about appearance in a wine? Me neither, really. But I like to look and I do appreciate when the color is distinctive. This was gorgeous - deep rich ruby red with purple undertones, and absolutely and perfectly clear and translucent. The nose was beautiful too, with crushed strawberries and raspberries, very clean and pure. with some freshly turned soil. If you feel the need to drink the wine go ahead, but you could also wallow in the nose all night and be happy. The flavors are echoed on the juicy and well balanced palate, and lip smacking acidity balances everything out, tingles the insides of the cheeks.

This wine is just lovely on its own, but it is also a perfect food wine - it's flavorful and structured enough, deep enough and elegant enough to compliment a wide range of dishes. Light enough and low enough in alcohol (13%) to go down easy. And at under $20, I might just have to grab four bottles for the Thanksgiving table...