Jean-Paul Dubost "Latignié Rouge" Beaujolais, France 2023

FROM ROSENTHAL:

THE WINE: From his 26 hectares in Lantignié, Brouilly, Moulin-a-Vent, and Morgon, fourth-generation vigneron Jean-Paul Dubost produces wines that combine lusciousness of fruit, mineral rigor, and open-armed friendliness in a way only great Beaujolais can. Jean-Paul assumed control of his family’s holdings in the mid-1990s, gradually steering viticulture toward organic practices, and today all parcels are either farmed fully organically or are in organic conversion. Dubost’s cellar regimen pulls simultaneously from regional tradition and thoughtful low-interventionism: spontaneous fermentations; classic semi-carbonic macerations, with no-destemming employed except for the naturally ultra-structured Moulin-a-Vent; and bottling with extremely low levels of added sulfur dioxide. Rather than conveying an overarching house style, Jean-Paul’s wines articulate with stark clarity their parcels and crus of origin, and the subtle differences he employs in the vinification and elevage of each wine serve only to enhance the transmission of terroir. With Dubost, one feels viscerally the stony snap of Brouilly, the lurking spicy power of Moulin-a-Vent, and the broad generosity of Morgon; and the wines from his home village of Lantignié, which flanks Regnié and Morgon to the west, feel more like great examples of cru Beaujolais than simple villages-level fare.

THE PRODUCER: This is the primary production wine of Dubost from several parcels totalling ten hectares surrounding their home village of Lantignié, just south of Chiroubles and west of Régnié, with a terroir of Muscovite granite and blue clay. The gamay undergoes a classic semi-carbonic maceration of whole clusters over 15 days in steel tanks, with twice daily pump-overs, and is bottled in the spring with a light filtration and no added sulphur. The Beaujolais-Lantignié actually drinks more like a cru—which it may well become one day—and is frankly a terrific value. The aromas are lifted, tweaked by the barest hint of appetizing volatility, and the fruit and acidity are gorgeously interwoven.