Foillard Fleurie

I love Jean Foillard's wines. There are many great Beaujolais wines, but if I were forced to choose only one to drink (and thank goodness I am not), I would choose Foillard's wines. And I say this without even having tasted only half of the wines he makes. The Morgon wines from Côte du Py and Corcelette I've drunk many times and based on these wines, Foillard makes my favorite wines from the Beaujolais.

I've never tasted the other Morgon wine, also from Côte du Py, called Cuvée 3.14, a wine made from old vines, and I think from un-grafted rootstock. You know, 3.14 as in π, as in pie, as in franc de pied (French rootstock). But I don't know this for a fact, I'm merely speculating.

Until the other night, I'd never tasted Foillard's Fleurie either. But a good friend opened a bottle of the 2007 the other night (about $40, imported by KERMIT LYNCH), and it was absolutely lovely.

This wine opened slowly, as Foillard's wines tend to do, the nose building to a crescendo of ripe Gamay fruit and flowers, wet stone underneath. The palate is elegant and shows great intensity and focus, and without weight, exactly the kind of thing that makes Burgundy and Beaujolais lovers swoon. The wine is well structured and firm, but lighter in body and more nimble than, say, Foillard's 2007 Morgons. It has the same power, but is even wispier.

I am not someone who can speak intelligently about the soil composition in Morgon versus Fleurie, but I think that comparing Foillard's wines is helpful in trying to understand the two terroirs. As Bert Celce of Wine Terroirs writes in his excellent and informative profiles of the Foillards, "Be it Corcelette, Côte de Py, Fleurie, Morgon, they vinify all these Gamays the same way (including the "lower" cuvées), which means that whatever differences you'll find (especially when comparing similarly-old vines), it will come from the terroir particularities."

On another note altogether, did you notice in the photo that this bottle looks different from Foillard's other bottles? Yes, the label is black, as is the wax coating the capsule. But I'm talking about the prominent message on the front of the label that says "Imported by KERMIT LYNCH." I have nothing but respect for Kermit Lynch and I would not presume to criticize his decisions regarding the wines he imports, or anything of that nature. But because appearances are such trivial matters, I will nitpick a little here.

This message is apparently now on the front of all of the US-bound Foillard wines, and I don't like it. It's kind of like watching Goodfellas, but with a constant graphic on the upper right part of the screen that says "Produced by BARBARA DeFINA." She was of vital importance in bringing Goodfellas to audiences and everyone thanks her, but she wasn't the creative force behind the film, and if I want to know who produced the film, I can look. It doesn't seem all that classy to have that information front and center.

Nitpicking -- finished. Thank you.