Domaine Louis Claude Desvignes Beaujolais L'Aube À Javernières 2022

Louis-Claude Desvignes founded this excellent domaine which is today owned and managed by his children Claude-Emmanuelle and Louis-Benoît, the eight generation to work this land. Emmanuelle joined in 2001 and Benoît in 2004; while little has changed stylistically, their arrival has brought some major shifts. 100% of the production is now estate-bottled (Louis-Claude sold about 50% of his production to négociants), the estate is now certified organic and the two have started a small négociant largely but not exclusively focused on producing single-vineyard expressions within Morgon. 

The family's historic vineyards have been within the Morgon cru for generations. Their first cuvée comes from multiple, complimentary plots blended together to produce "La Voûte Saint-Vincent" The majority of the vines are on the Côte du Py in the center of Morgon, the fruit of which is of far superior quality to that produced in the outlying areas of the appellation. If there were a classification of vineyards in Morgon, Côte du Py would be a premier cru and Javernières a grand cru. They are located on the best exposition of the hill, with soil of decomposed schist, and Javernières is a plot within the Côte du Py with a little more clay. 

Throughout the 1990's and 2000's Louis-Claude began picking fruit later than the other vignerons in the area with a mind to get fruit at optimal ripeness. As the planet continues to grow hotter, his children have re-evaluated these methods without sacrificing the grapes' full potential. The wines are vinified by the traditional cru Beaujolais method with a grille to keep the cap submerged. Recently, the fermentation has been longer and more controlled than in the past in order to extract the color and material that are the most obvious virtues of this wine. 

Morgon is, along with Moulin-à-Vent, the most age worthy of the Cru Beaujolais and Desvignes wines are fine examples. The wines age terrifically and take on the character of Pinot Noir, or pinotize (the term used in Beaujolais). When young, the character is of dark cherry, raspberry and blackcurrant. With age, the wines become more earthy, velvety with cocoa and coffee tones. 

We tasted and positively fell in love with this bottling, named 'L'Aube à Javernières. Made of 100% Gamay (like all Beaujolais wines), 2020 was the first vintage of 'L'Aube à Javernières' and the first Desvignes wine to not be strictly from the cru of Morgon. This new 0.84-hectare parcel of 20-30-year-old, certified-organic vines grows in deep clay soils just outside the Morgon appellation on the edge of Javernières at the base of the Côte du Py hill. The bunches are harvested by hand, with around 60% of them destemmed. They are gently pressed and go into closed concrete vats for a partly carbonic fermentation; maceration is about 10 days with a submerged cap and no punchdowns. A very small amount of sulfur is added after malo and sometimes at bottling. The wine is aged in concrete vat for 7 months and bottled with a light, non-sterile filtration.