Jean-Paul Brun's Beautiful 2007 Beaujolais l'Ancienne Denied the AOC Beaujolais!
Can you imagine the stupidity!
Jean-Paul Brun just learned that 5,222 cases of Beaujolais l' Ancienne 2007 have been deemed as being atypical by the French wine police.
I've enjoyed a bunch of these bottles. They are fruity and elegant and a true pleasure to drink. So what's wrong?
They were not made with the miserable thermo vinification technique that Georges Duboeuf and the Beaujolais Establishment has decided is typical. The wine was not made with enzymes and cultured years but comes only from what the earth and the vine brought into the bottle. It was not made at high yields or high chaptalization, but is a real and natural wine.
This year, we at Louis/Dressner are importing more and more Vins de Table and wines without the AOC agreement. It is becoming increasingly difficult for the small minority of natural winemakers to continue to work in the context of the AOC because the AOCs want to enforce a uniform and medicore style with no tolerance for originality and authenticity.
The entirety of the Southern Beaujolais is suffering and only a few estates working authentically are still selling well. While their neighbors pull out vines to make way for housing developments for Lyonais looking to live in the country, the Bruns and Chermettes continue to prosper.
To persecute the Jean-Paul Bruns of the Beaujolais (already Marcel Lapierre, Jean-Paul Thévenent and Georges Descombes have had problems) will only hasten the decline of the Beaujolais region.
Are the wines of Jean-Paul Brun and Marcel Lapierre plunging the Beaujolais into economic ruin? Just the opposite, those are the growers who have prospered because their wines have stepped out of the industrial cookie cutter pushed by Duboeuf and the Beaujolais authorities.
People buy Terres Dorées and all the best producers of the Beaujolais because they know that those growers are the true defenders of the Beaujolais' terroir. The overwhelming mediocracy of the region has become so depressing that the official authorities see no choice but to strike back at the few successful growers who continue to make distinctive and grand vin.
At this point, I am not certain if the wine will be released as Vin de Pay or Vin de Table. All I know is that it will continue to be an immensely enjoyable wine.
The problem is will the market continue to buy the wines because it no longer has a Beaujolais label?
Let's hope people will reject this bullyish and ridiculous measure on the part of the AOC.
Put me down for two cases. One being more or less my normal share, and the second as my personal expression of your favorite obscene gesture or phrase (my French obscene gesture and profanity-fu is weak . . .) to the Beaujolais "establishment." Go M. Brun!
Cheers,
Dave Nelson
"Putain." That always works.
Wow, that's psychotic. That's a delicious wine. The authorities should try to claim it as their own even if it actually violated any sensible rule. They should be so lucky as to have people in their AOC bringing such credit to them by making good wine.
I'll add: Punaise! That's just bizarre. I want the wine; don't care what's on the label.
Cliff
On the one hand, it seems ridiculous ... but, on the other, it has a bit of 'banned in Boston' to it which may actually help publicize Brun's wines...
I can't wait to get as much as I can of it.
Putain-esca Sauce...
Joe are you a typical importer??
I dunno...who buys Brun's wines on a whim? I would think that 95% of the people who drink it go to the store looking for his name and the familiar "l'Ancienne" on the label and may not even notice the lack of an appellation.
Is "putain" the one after which I'm supposed to bitterly spit on the ground for extra emphasis? That just feels right, but perhaps that's the method for all French obscenities. Thanks for the help!
Cheers,
Dave Nelson
Qu'est-ce que fuck?
(a phrase actually heard from a young American girl in Avignon circa 1990).
Sounds like the French are dong their best to split their wine into 2 groups.
1) Phenomenally expensive stuff that most people can't afford
2) Industrially made, homogeneous crap
Great strategy.
As a US consumer - one who likes to drink French wine but does not know everything about it - the importer means more to me than the AOC designation. I have always enjoyed Louis Dressner selections wines in the past and would try any Dressner selection at least once - regardless of anything else on (or missing from) the label.
This happens to Puzelat sometimes too, right? Others too all over France. In this case, as in Puzelat's case, people buy the wine because they know and love the producer. I imagine that the same will happen for M. Brun. Perhaps this will only increase his status among Americans as a cult-ish and interesting wine maker.
anonymous
Meh. If drinking Brun is wrong, I don't wanna be right.
-E
The store i work at sells a Beaujolais called L'Ancien from this Brun guy. So can i get the l'Ancien in 2007 or what?
pfft.
Brun's my hero.
la France est un pays fertile, on y plante des fonctionnaires et il pousse des impots
2004 rose d'un jour, ferme sansonniere