2011 Chateau du Mouln-A-Vent Champ de Cour

Overtly oaked, but not ruinously. Sweet black fruit, juicy and syrupy. Good concentration and length. Bold and successful. (RH)

Representing 8,000 bottles due to have been bottled this spring, the Chateau du Moulin-a-Vent 2011 Moulin-a-Vent Champ de Cour projects effusively fruity boysenberry and black raspberry tinged with mint, nutmeg, cinnamon and caramelized resin. Expansive and softly textured on the palate, it picks up a slightly drying spot from wood tannin in its finish, although juiciness of ripe berries still comes through in an impressively sustained finish. Where, though, are the mineral, floral or carnal dimensions one anticipates from the best of Beaujolais and indeed finds alluringly manifested in so many of this wine’s stable mates? Perhaps they are simply covered over for now – or were when I tasted in December. The theory on which the team here has proceeded – if it can take more wood, then it needs more wood – is certainly a familiar one, but I remain skeptical in practice, even if I don’t doubt that this bottling will continue projecting sweet berry fruit at least through 2016. And as for the theory that a great, ageworthy wine needs time in bottle to properly express itself, the finest and most long-lived Beaujolais of my cellaring experience were mostly also compellingly delicious as youngsters too. Jean-Jacques Parinet’s team (see my extended introduction in Issue 196 for more on them) continues their ambitious revival of this venerable estate as well as the consolidation of its former vineyard surface. The Chateau now farms a total of 92 acres following acquisition of the formerly (and briefly) Girardin-owned Tour du Bief property, the wines from which will be issued under a separate label that I was not yet able to see, so for now I am reporting on them as part of and under the name of Chateau du Moulin-a-Vent. (For more about the effects of this new ownership, see my notes under “Tour du Bief” in this issue on the wine that Girardin continues to make from a portion of his former holdings.) Around half of the Chateau du Moulin-a-Vent vineyards are now farmed under an organic regimen, which will expand to soon encompass its entirety; and about half the fruit is sold off in bulk so as to retain only the best for estate production, a ratio that may or may not change much depending on how the vines and soils respond to their relatively new owner and the market responds to his wines. I have already expressed in Issue 196 my reservations about the way the new-ish 350- and (for Champ de Cour 50% new) 228-liter barrels have influenced some of these wines. I worry lest the frequent flattery directed toward them as “Burgundy-like” will over-influence the domaine’s approach in the cellar and handicap its ability to reveal the unique distinction of Gamay on great granite soils. I certainly have no reservations, though, about the practice of relatively late-bottling and of late-release for wines intended to be cellared, and the 2011s are only now – in spring, 2013 – poised to enter the market. By any standards, the Chateau du Moulin-a-Vent wines are already impressive. (For notes on the sites they single-out for bottling, consult my notes on the 2010s both in Issue 196 and below.) There is still no U.S. importer for this estate, though plans are in the offing.