2007 Moulin a Vent Clos des Thorins, Ch des Jacques

The 2007 Moulin-a-Vent Chateau des Jacques Clos des Thorins – from a relatively clay-rich portion of the property – smells of blackberries, iodine, and chalk. Resin, brown spices, sage, salt, iodine, fruit pit bitterness, and crushed stone augment the concentration of tart black fruits and beef marrow on a firm, bright, and palpably dense and tannic palate, and carry into a tart, high-tension 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