Dujac, one of the top wineries in Burgundy. Marie Elodie is one of the best winemakers I know and conforms to no standards as to how Beaujolais is made. She is uncompromising and makes wine her way. This is no light, elegant, carbonic Morgon that smells like spice and fresh red fruit, which I love, but this is an apple to that orange. This is Beaujolais made in the style of Burgundy and it's at a completely other level in terms of complexity (Marie Elodie is married to the owner of the Confuron-Coteidot estate in Vosne-Romanee).
Today I am proud to offer the 2011 Clos du Mez Morgon "Chateau Gaillard" for as little as $21.99 on a 6-pack. As anybody who has had Clos du Mez knows this is a steal for a wine of this quality. The Clos du Mez Morgon shows gorgeous dark fruit aromas, with seductive mineral and cooling tones on the nose but also loads of earth and bark. The palate is classic explosive Clos du Mez Morgon, with tiny dark black and red fruits hitting your palate in waves with a distinctly rocky, cooling minerality. Velvety tannins throughout coat the palate with the juicy, vivid pure fruit. She ages her wines much longer than almost anyone as she is making it just like Burgundy.$21.99 usually gets you a gluggable wine without much complexity. $21.99 wines usually have generally unidimensional fruit but lack aromatics, structure and secondary and tertiary flavors. Clos de Mez has complexity that punches way above its weight. From the first sip you can taste the structure and complexity of the wine; it's almost like a coiled 20 foot python that gradually unfurls as the wine opens. It's unlike almost any other Cru Beaujolais and more like a complex, fruity Burgundy. If you are looking for an affordable red wine that is delicious, interesting and will age, this is a tremendous, tremendous value.
2011 can be maligned in Beaujolais, not nearly as much say 2008, but it is for sure a grower by grower vintage when it comes to evaluating your purchases. I was very lucky as Guignier and Clos du Mez both showed extremely well given the somewhat difficult vintage. The 2011's are showing up now, along with certain earlier releasing 2012's. This gets "officially" released in France in April, so she really holds back her Beaujolais. Financially it certainly hurts her, but uncompromising winemakers make decisions like this all the time as it is all about the quality. This is a deep wine. Especially for an '11 when at their weakest and mediocre they can be thin. That makes this wine all the more remarkable.
The Morgon character comes out after 2-3 days open, 10-15 years in the cellar, or as a customer recently astutely noted (about another Morgon made in a non traditional way), with food. Most, if not all of the the wines I sell are enhanced by food. Just like with Bonnes-Mares, Gevrey-Chambertin "Clos St. Jacques" and Vosne-Romanee "Malconsorts" the character of the site will only show itself after days open or many years of cellaring. That is what Marie-Elodie is going for in her wines and she executes it perfectly.
Below is some history from various Clos du Mez offers in the past.
Marie Elodie's wines have the traditional wonderful Beaujolais fruit but that fruit is interlaced with acid balance, complexity and soaring aromatics. These are incredibly serious, structured wines that are built for aging and will soon be added to the canon of top Beaujolais producers that Beaujolais lovers and even serious Burgundy lovers must own. Just like every Beaujolais wine dork I have a rotation of Beaujolais that I drink. Roillette, Brun, Desvignes, Lapierre, Breton, Metras (when I can find it), Vissoux and Lapalu. The usual suspects. There are also other Beaujolais dorks that have rotations such as mine. One of those said dorks is Jeremy Seysses of Domaine Dujac. Jeremy has a love of German Riesling (how we met and became friends), which is a bit unusual in Burgundy and also a love of great Beaujolais, not as unusual in Burgundy.
My business partner and I arrived at Domaine Dujac as our first stop in Burgundy. We had a wonderful lunch and many bottles were opened. Now that Jeremy was in a slightly altered state of consciousness I decided to ask him what, if any, new producers were in his Beaujolais rotation. Jeremy immediately blurted out Clos de Mez and pronounced it as his favorite Beaujolais. Our ears perked up and we listened.
Jeremy told us that Marie-Elodie is married to the owner of the Confuron-Coteidot estate in Vosne-Romanee. She has been making small amounts of Morgon and Fleurie since the 2005 vintage and splits her time between Beaujolais and Burgundy. He gave us her e-mail and we went back and forth with her playing e-mail tag. We were leaving our last appointment on our last day in France (with a daunting drive from Burgundy to Frankfurt ahead of us), and Marie Eloide got back to us and said we should stop by the Confuron-Coteidot estate and taste on our way back to Frankfurt.
After we left our last appointment we were beat. After over 3 weeks on the road, we both were stanky, had laundry on the back window drying, were wined out and had a 6-7 hour drive back to Frankfurt to fly back home. But we decided we had to go see her. It was Jeremy's favorite Beaujolais, she was waiting for us, and no matter how spent we were, this is what I signed up for and I had to embrace it no matter how bad I smelled. We arrived at the beautiful, picturesque estate of Confuron-Coteidot in the heart of Vosne-Romanee and there was Marie-Eloide waiting for us with her enchanting smile and profoundly adorable son.
Marie-Elodie's wines have many of the characteristics that you see in great, undiscovered winemakers. 1) They are doing things slightly differently than most winemakers in the area (here, the use of traditional Burgundian elevage). 2) The wines are wonderful in difficult vintages (2008 and 2009 were incredible wines that show all the good and none of the bad of these vintages). 3) The wines illustrate the depth and complexity on the palate that illustrate that they will become more interesting with age. 4) The wines are underpriced at first then go up as people discover them (see Gonon). $21.99 is an insanely low price for a wine with this level of complexity and ageability.
They are made in the Burgundian style in that it has Burgundian complexity and structure. Forget that this is made from Gamay, all you anti-Gamay people who don't like Beaujolais. There is NO better wine made in Burgundy that sells for under $22. Nothing that can even compare. The more Burgundian style elevage wines have more structure (sweet velvety tannin), sweeter fruit, and most importantly are NOT made via carbonic maceration, which allows the grapes to ferment in an enviroment rich in carbon, mostly before the grape is crushed, which leads to lighter wines with not much tannin and amazing aromas when young. Carbonic maceration wines can be wonderful (Metras, Guignier, Lapierre) but for my palate I prefer the richer, structured style of the Burgundian elevage way. I love the carbonic ones but there are surely more Burgundian elevage style ones in my cellar.
2011 Clos du Mez Morgon "Chateau Gaillard" - $24.99
($131.94 6-pack)
beautiful baby
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