2007 Moulin A Vent

The 2007 Moulin-a-Vent Chateau des Jacques represents a blend of different sites. Red raspberry and smoked meat dominate on the nose and palate, and there is both a slightly astringent and resinous as well as a brightly acidic streak that keep this obviously well-concentrated wine from singing. With a bit of time in the air, deeper meatiness and riper fruit emerge, and stony and stimulating saline notes add to the interest in a persistent finish. Jadot technical director Jacques Lardiere and his Beaujolais-based counterpart Guillaume de Castelnau have founded their Beaujolais methodology in large part on a serious study of this region’s history of age-worthy and prestigious wine. The team saw their intuitions concerning the use of barriques confirmed, for example, by ancient stone emplacements on the floor of the Chateau des Jacques cellar that seem clearly to have been designed to support small barrels. The fruit of Chateau des Jacques (which Jadot acquired in 1996) and Chateau des Lumieres is given an essentially Burgundian vinification, including gentle pump-overs, aging for up to a year in largely new barriques, and segregation by vineyard (although a blend is essayed at each address as well). The result is wines with a youthful firmness such as one seldom encounters in Beaujolais, and that need time in the air (or the bottle) to blossom. These wines are clearly built to age, and Lardiere and de Castelnau would have us believe that means for more than a decade, at least in the case of the single-vineyard bottlings. (I’ll refrain from further prognoses about individual wines, having not had a chance to follow any of these for an extended time in bottle.) I did not have occasion to taste any of the 2008s in barrel, and based on the performance of earlier vintages, due to the oak element, tannin levels, and no doubt other factors, these wines are most easily and usefully tasted after bottling. There is now a growing Jadot family of individual single-estate or terroir-specific Beaujolais as well as generic cru bottlings, none of which I have had an opportunity to taste. Imported by Kobrand, Inc., New York, NY; tel. (212) 490 9300