Beaujolais comes in many different shapes and sizes from light, fruity and simple to serious weighty wines made from sunny sites on south facing hillsides. If your only experience of Beaujolais is nouveau, please don't give up just yet - read on and perhaps buy one or both of these exceptional new wines that shine a totally different light on a great French classic. It's called Beaujolais and it has nothing to do with light bodied nouveau styles that are rushed out to market in a gimmicky fashion in November each year. 

These wines are serious. 

These two Beaujolais are new in store this month, both from Domaine Laurent Martray. The wines come from the smallest and the largest of the 10 Beaujolais Cru. The smallest is Cote du Brouilly and the largest is Brouilly. 

This producer has a traditional approach to winemaking, using a proportion of whole bunch fermentation with two-week long macerations and comparatively long élevage in aged barrels and foudres. The result is full bodied, classically structured wines that evolve gracefully in bottle and pay homage to traditional Beaujolais, before the craze for Beaujolais nouveau besmirched the reputation of this lovely French wine region. 

We are excited to have these modern classics in store. Here are our notes.

Two new Beaujolais from Brouilly and Cotes de Brouilly

2019 Domaine Laurent Martray Brouilly La Folie

La Folie is a single vineyard wine, known in France as a lieu-dit. The soil is pink granite and the grapes were fermented with 50% destemmed and matured in foudres and barrels. Fresh flavours of wild berries, spice and bay leaf lead into a medium to full-bodied, velvety wine with a core of soft fruit appeal. 

2019 Domaine Laurent Martray Côte de Brouilly Les Feuillées

The 2019 Côte de Brouilly Les Feuillées is a multi layered complex wine which reveals deep aromas of cherries, black berries, spices, floral flavours and soft mouthfeel supported by firm acidity for structure. 

The wine is made from old vines planted in 1916 on Mont Brouilly, which overlooks the village of Odenas. It's a one hectare site with porphyritic and diorite rocks with blue volcanic stone.

* All grapes in both wines were hand picked.