Wine of the Week - Jean Foillard Morgon

If I were putting together a Noah's Ark of wine, Jean Foillard's Morgons would represent the Beaujolais species. There are many lovable Beaujolais wines, but I love these the most. And it's funny, because Foillard's wines are not, in my experience, all that lovable upon opening. They can be a little gassy at first, also showing some reductive aromas until the wine meets up with some oxygen. But when a Foillard Morgon opens up, it can be a very beautiful thing. The fruit is joyous and lovely - this is true of most good Beaujolais wines. These are complex and well balanced wines too. But the things that defines Foillard's wines for me is the way they combine such incredible clarity with such rich intensity.

Morgon is considered by many to offer the greatest potential of the 10 Beaujolais Crus. The Côte de Py is the most renown site in Morgon. It is a large hill with soils of schist and granite, an extinct volcano actually, as I learned from Bert's post on Wine Terroirs. Foillard has plots on the Côte de Py, and also in another Morgon vineyard called Corcelette, a plot with sandy soil, as I learned from Peter Liem's post (the comments explain this). I don't know the age of Foillard's vines in Côte de Py, but his vines in Corcelette are about 80 years old. The Côte de Py is pretty easy to find in NYC each year, Corcelette is more difficult. Both wines are delicious young, but they have a reputation for aging particularly well.

A friend came for brunch last weekend and one of the wines we drank was the 2007 Corcelette. And if you have a problem with the fact that we opened several bottles with brunch, I really just don't know what to tell you. We didn't finish what we opened, but when you have the chance to drink wine with a fellow wine lover, why not explore a few bottles together? We both loved the Corcelette, and he wasn't around later that evening when the wine hit a crescendo. It was so good that I felt compelled to open the 2007 Côte de Py later in the week, just to see how it would compare. It was also fantastic, but in a different way. The wines are quite obviously sisters, but they offer a different expression of Morgon Gamay.

The fruit is vibrant in the 2007 Foillard Morgon Corcelette, $29, imported by Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant. The acidity is vibrant too, and the wine feels tactile in the mouth - crunchy almost. This is cooling and floral raspberry fruit, smooth and velvety, and there is a gorgeous fragrance on the finish. After several hours open, this wine was remarkable in its old vines intensity - the nose just builds and builds and builds, and the pure fragrance of slightly herbal ripe fruit fills every crevice in the mouth after swallowing. Such a beautiful wine! I'd rather spend my money on this than Bourgogne rouge.

The 2007 Foillard Morgon Côte de Py, also $29, wears its structure more overtly, its deep cherry fruit corralled by iron and rock. The fruit is spicier and more mineral infused than the Corcelette, meatier. The texture here is also velvety smooth, but even after a few hours the structure is still as prominent as is the fruit. This wine is more steak and potatoes, and the Corcelette is more warm raspberry pie. I suspect that the Côte de Py, although delicious now, will be more harmonious in a few years.