Nouveau look?

Beaujolais is having a hard time of it. Sales are spiralling downwards and its image is at an all-time low. So what does it need to turn itself around? Michael Edwards reports

AFTER CHAMPAGNE, Beaujolais must be the best known of all French wines.  Yet the sobering reality is that since 1999 Beaujolais has seriously underperformed in several of the main European markets.

Exports to Switzerland, traditionally the principal market for Beaujolais abroad, have dropped by over 40% in five years.  Germany’s performance has also been weak, down 23.7% over the same period.

Even the resilient UK market, after putting in respectable growth of 9.2% in 2001, saw the figure slip to 3.73% last year.  Certainly 2002 was particularly difficult for the region, the nadir of its fortunes coinciding with a slight, average quality harvest affected by rain and potential rot.

Last year’s sale at the Hospice de Beaujeu was a damp squib, 26 of the 50 lots barely achieving their reserve price.  In the wider community important wine stocks remained unsold; at the end of 2002, the co-operative of Lachassagne still had 9,000 hectolitres, or two thirds of production, on its hands.

Even the mighty Georges Duboeuf felt the chill of recession, his turnover for 2001/2002 falling by a couple of percentage points.  Working out a way forward Typically, he drew the right conclusions.

Duboeuf had felt for some time that too many of growers’ wines available lacked the concentration that he and his customers expected.

So he invested €6.85 million in the construction of a new stateof- the-art winery at Lancié, where he could receive grapes cultivated as far as possible to his own specification by 50 growers under a stringent contract.

This was a more radical departure than it might seem, as big merchants traditionally don’t make wine in the Beaujolais and it’s not customary to buy grapes.  The Lancié winery opened in time for the 2002 harvest.

Last year 11,000 hectolitres of Beaujolais Villages, Morgon, Régnié, Brouilly and Moulin-à- Vent, as well as barrel-fermented Pouilly Fuissé, were made.  By 2004, the winery’s maximum output of 18,000hl should be on tap.

"At first," reports Bernard Georges, Duboeuf’s export manager, "the contracted growers weren’t too happy that up to 8% of their grapes were rejected.  But with the 2003 harvest yielding much more concentrated fruit, the rejection rate fell to just over 1%."

Duboeuf pays the growers’ an average price for their grapes less the cost of vinification, thus giving him a further handle of control over prices.  Duboeuf’s winemaking venture may be reaping rewards already.  According to AC Nielsen figures for March/April 2003, offtrade sales were up 5% in Britain (though the first half 2003 figure is a modest 0.6%).  

Susannah George, formerly UK marketing manager for Berkmann/Duboeuf is surprisingly upbeat about the market: "We’ve found that there is a huge interest at cru level particularly.

I feel that some of the increase in sales could be attributed to the fact that the mass-market UK palate demands easy drinking, fruit-driven New World style wine and that’s essentially what Beaujolais is, so people are coming back to it in droves.

Our sales in Sainsbury’s are doing extremely well, as is the Discovery case (Beaujolais, Beaujolais Villages, the 10 crus) we sell through Majestic."  The issue of an easy, all-pervasive New World style of wine is central to the debate of what Beaujolais is, or rather should be.

For the mass market, where consistency of primary fruit flavours is paramount, a high-tech method like thermo-vinification (the must is first briefly heated to 68°C) certainly does the business.

The downside is that high-tech winemaking also tends to standardise the quality of the wine.  There is, of course, another way in which the uniquely fresh, digestible virtues of Beaujolais can be safeguarded.

It’s called "tradition", an ethos which some say has been fatally undermined by a majority of Beaujolais producers over the last 20 years.  One who has kept the faith is the compact family négociant Pierre Ferraud et Fils in Belleville.

This firm still uses large, old oak casks (foudres) to age and aerate its top cru wines for a few months before bottling in order to soften and best express the individual character of their respective appellations.

The Ferrauds are almost alone among Beaujolais merchants in continuing this traditional practice, which probably explains why too many Beaujolais wines, even at top village level, can often taste reductive and characterless.

Getting back to basics

Excessive chaptalisation is another bane of Beaujolais winemaking, robbing the wines of their natural aromas and finesse.  The simplest Ferraud wine illustrates the point.

Its straight Beaujolais AOC Cuvée des Montagnards 2002 comes from the hills above Beaujeu, the higher altitude giving the wine fresher acidity, greater definition of flavour and less alcohol; Beaujolais at its scented, delicious best, the sort of wine the old timers used to drink all day while playing boules, measuring their shots in empty pots de Beaujolais laid out end to end.

"This style of wine should rejuvenate the image of Beaujolais," says Yves-Dominique Ferraud.  Down to earth, Simon Thorpe MW, Burgundy buyer for Waitrose, puts these issues in the hard commercial context of the British market.

"Buying Beaujolais can be a frustrating exercise at the top level because the wines often taste fairly similar," is his judgement.  "It’s a confusing category.  We sell a lot of wine and make money from Beaujolais, giving us a good customer franchise.

Fleurie is the big name, really a brand. But until the top growers use more wood, this sameness of flavour will continue and I don’t see a huge development here."  An exception that Thorpe makes is the Louis Jadot range of Beaujolais based at its properties at Château des Jacques (Moulin-à-Vent), Domaine de Bellevue (Morgon) and Combe aux Jacques (Beaujolais Villages).

"The Moulin in particular is a fine structured wine, traditionally fermented, no carbonic maceration, long vatting and six months in barriques," Thorpe comments.  Crisis, what crisis? Happily there is a band of similarly minded top growers in Beaujolais, who, significantly, have no difficulty in selling their wine, crisis or no crisis.

Paul Champier, the winemaker of Brouilly, Domaine Rolland, now in his mid-sixties, has always treated the Gamay grape and the earth from which it comes with proper respect.

His vineyard is eco-friendly, the aspect of his winemaking most in synch with nature is something he calls pied de cuve (foot of the vat).  For this, just before the harvest he takes grapes from all parts of the vineyard and then makes a microvinification of this sample.

With the harvest proper coming in, as each vat is filled with must a tenth of the pied de cuve is added.  Once the fermentation is underway, a compensating tenth of the whole is restored to the pied to nourish it.

The procedure is repeated with each filling vat. The great benefit of this method is that it avoids any use of industrial yeasts, relying instead on natural ones in the vineyard; the wine is much purer, fruitier and, crucially, more faithful in flavour to its origins.

Marcel Lapierre is another leading grower committed to what he calls "classic bio" methods. His 11ha vineyard in Morgon is immaculately tended, the search for maximum ripeness a major priority.

Marcel is renowned for his steady nerve in picking as late as possible, his willingness to throw the gambler’s dice to achieve phenolic maturity in his grapes.

Marcel intervenes as little as possible in the winemaking process which follows a classic Beaujolais pattern; unhurried fermentations, then maybe nine to 10 months in impeccable large oak foudres before bottling. His wines are never filtered and rarely exceed 12.5% abv.

A sprightly 52 year old, Marcel has a natural affinity with the young.  "The generation of Beaujolais growers less than 25 years of age are much more alive to the steps they need to take along the road to quality, especially in respecting both the grape and the environment.

My own generation, now in their 50, has a lot to answer for. We inherited the good times from our fathers’ toil, life became too easy and standards dropped.  In looking for scapegoats for the crisis, my generation tends to blame everyone but themselves."

For the top end of the market, the road to recovery is simple and straight.  It’s a matter of back to basics in the vineyard and winery, reviving the methods used by the old producers before Beaujolais became an international commodity, and above all by making sure that technology is a servant and not a master.

But what about the more intangible problem of Beaujolais’ tarnished image? "It’s a bit fashionable to knock Beaujolais, not just journalists but the trade too. 

We like doing it and we’re rather good at it," says Anthony Lacey, managing director of Mistral Wines, agents for Pierre Ferraud and the Beaucastel/Perrin wines of the Southern Rhône.  "But the reality is that the good importers – The Wine Society is a good example – are serving a public who appreciate good Beaujolais.

As for Beaujolais Nouveau, this is the butt of the biggest jokes of all. But Beaujolais is really the only new wine most people ever taste and if they want to drink a fresh Gamay in November, why shouldn’t they?"

Stimulating interest

Those who do are likely to be in for a surprising treat this year as several serious importers are planning a mini-revival for Beaujolais Nouveau 2003 from this, the earliest vintage for 110 years and probably one of the ripest too.

"I first fell in love with red wine after tasting the Beaujolais Nouveau 1976 (another very ripe year) it was such fun," recalls Andrew Firth, managing director of Playford Ros, the North Yorkshire fine wine shippers, "so we are revving up our hotel and restaurant accounts to take a few cases again as a way of both livening up the Beaujolais market and making restaurant lists less predictable and contracted than they often are nowadays.

I’ve also got three of our staff giving talks to hotels and restaurants to revive interest in Beaujolais wines."  Over in Jersey Martin Flageuil, managing director of Victor Hugo Wines, says, "The announcement of the new wine from the Beaujolais still heralds the start of the new vintage in Europe and is, I believe, still worth celebrating as some form of annual rite of passage.

Although the queues for Beaujolais Nouveau are not as long as those for Cloudy Bay Sauvignon, which arrives at around the same time, aficionados of the Gamay show every sign of continuing to imbibe their favourite tipple on the third Thursday of November every year."

Of the big wholesalers, Majestic is going to take a punt on Nouveau 2003 though according to buyer Chris Hardy, costing it is something of an issue this year.  

"With a very small crop, higher grape prices and a stronger euro, it will be difficult to sell under £5 a bottle."

Hardy is, by contrast, very happy with the success of the Georges Duboeuf Discovery case.  "It’s a brilliant bit of marketing offering the taste of the whole region in just 12 bottles.

Small wonder that Penfolds have taken on the concept and even copied the name for their own selection from Australia!"  In the end, however, Beaujolais could perhaps do with a little bit of soul searching – what is it, and what does it want to be? David Lindsay, partner at Lindsay May PR sees Beaujolais as very much a wine that is for today; light, versatile, one that can be drunk all year round.

"A wine for all seasons but not a seasonal drink," is the phrase he uses.  From a marketing angle, he also thinks that Beaujolais wines generally need livelier labels with back labels in English.

In other words, it needs an image change – and one that reflects all the aforementioned positives.  There also needs to be a major generic push, entailing an independent rather than a government body, that promotes Beaujolais for the UK.

There should be regional tastings to illustrate what and where the different wines are – particularly the crus.  It happens with other regions and countries, in some cases with astounding success and there’s absolutely no reason why it shouldn’t happen with Beaujolais as well.