Easy Drinking: France’s Georges Duboeuf Gets a Make-Over

Spring and Summer time often bring me to drink white and rose wines although I confess that reds are my real favorites. I drink large amounts of Italian wine but the real truth is that I was a Francophile long before I became a die-hard Italophile. In my home, everything French was considered to be superior, from the wines to the food to the art and much of the literature. When I was young, I remember my father always talking about how life was so much better in France. We went to France often as I was growing up and I felt very at home in that culture. Returning to the States, we could always bring a little of France home by going to the store to some buy some chevre and  a bottle of Beaujolais by Georges Duboeuf, a name synonymous with the Beaujolais region for decades. I was a French major in college and lived in Dijon in Burgundy for eight months but I rarely have had a wine from Georges Duboeuf in the ensuing years. That is, until a tasting in late April. Boy was I missing out. The tasting was held in the swank Astor Center and was the pre-release of their 2008 Beaujolais Cru with stylish flower labels as part of the new Georges Duboeuf campaign called Style and Substance, officially launched on May 1, 2009. Many activities are planned throughout the year to re-introduce Georges Duboeuf wines to the U.S. market. This make-over of Duboeuf is interesting as he is the premier producer of Beaujolais in the the world, controlling 20% of the market. He works with 20 cooperatives and over 400 growers and his wines are distributed in 120 countries. Georges Duboeuf started early in the business, bringing his wines around to chefs in his region by bike at a young age. He became a negociant in 1964. French wines have taken a back seat for the first time in a decade to Italian wines in terms of exports to the US. Perhaps Duboeuf will lead the way in garnering more attention for medium priced French wines. The Duboeuf wines retail anywhere from $12.99 to $17.99, a favored price point during this ongoing recession.

 Beaujolais is in the southern portion of Burgundy. The soils vary in terms of the hillside and the valleys. The cru wines come from the hillier regions with schist soil while the area where Beaujolais and Beaujolais Village come from tends to have more clay and limestone.  Georges Duboeuf and his son Franck said at a press conference in April that this year was the smallest harvest since 1995 but that they grapes were very healthy thanks to considerable sorting in the vineyards. In a press release, they said, that it is their impression that “due to smaller yields, the structure of the 2008 vintage has resulted in perfectly balanced and fuller bodied wines.”

We tasted many of the 10 cru wines of Beaujolais as well as a few white wines from Macon-Villages and Pouilly-Fuisse. I was pleasantly surprised by all of the white wines and enjoyed the Chardonnay both from Macon-Villages and Pouilly-Fuisse thanks to its ovely minerality and lively acidity. My favorite though, was the Saint-Veran with its clean citrus notes and white flower aromas. It was persistent and had a long finish as well. The whites were all in the $12-$24 dollar range. At $15.99, the Saint-Veran seemed to call out to me,

The big guns at the tasting were undoubtedly, the red wines of the Beaujolais crus. Ten in all, we tasted seven of them from the Georges Duboeuf portfolio. All Beaujolais whether it be Beaujolais Nouveau, Beaujolais, Beaujolais Superieur, Beaujolais Villages or a Beaujolais Cru is made 100% from the Gamay grape, a thin skinned grape which tends to produce a lively and fruity wine, Beaujolais is made using a technique known as carbonic maceration where whole grapes are pressed and CO2 is added to the tank to create a hermetic fermentation period. Gravity is used to aid in pressing the grapes and the weight of the top level of whole bunches of grapes eventually draws out the juice in the lower level of grapes. The ones that haven’t turned into juice are eventually lightly pressed and the wine that results in light and fruity, often with a strawberry, banana aroma.

The crus of Beaujolais, include Saint Amour, Julienas, Chenas, Fleurie, Moulin-a-Vent, Chiroubles, Morgan, Regnie, Cotes du Brouilly and Brouilly, are made using traditional red-winemaking techniques not carbonic maceration but longer fermentation periods. Each cru is renowned for a different aroma and it is said that Moulin-a-Vent and Morgon are the most long lived. George Duboeuf said that each year one of the cru stand out and that this was the year for Brouilly.  Many people prefer Brouilly and Morgon to the other crus. I found all of the wines delicious, some more elegant and feminine than others. I was quite partial to the Chiroubles with its red fruit flavors, minerally, elegance and finesse and to the Fleurie which had a spectacularly long finish and aromas of black fruit, violets, dried roses and cassis. We tried two different Fleurie, the Georges Duboeuf 2008 Fleurie and the Georges Duboeuf Clos des Quatre Vents Fleurie 2008, which was slightly more expensive at $16.99. This wine had very fine tannins and was nicely round on the palate. The Morgon and the Moulin-a-Vent were also lovely but needed a bit more time. They were slightly bigger wines than the delicate Fleurie and Chiroubles to which I am so partial. All in all, the event was lovely and felt like a bit of Spring in France despite the New York streetscape. Georges Duboeuf was presented with a huge birthday cake  for his 76th by the members of a Beaujolais society, les Campagnerons du Beaujolais, an organization that promotes Beaujolais.