2020 Alex Foillard Cote de Brouilly Beaujolais 750 ml

Alex Foillard is Beaujolais royalty. Gamay courses through his veins. 

As the son of “Gang of Four” Morgon producer Jean Foillard, he grew up immersed in the culture of naturally farmed, minimally interventionist Beaujolais. This means making wine using whole-cluster fermentation, natural yeasts, no fining or filtration, and no additives of any kind save a minimal sulfur addition at bottling.

Jean Foillard must have been pleased to see Alex’s interest in winegrowing from an early age, when he cheerfully joined the picking crews at harvest. He attended high school at the Lycée Agricole in Montpellier, then earned a winemaking degree in Beaune, which led to some illuminating stages in far-flung locales like Nuits-St.-Georges, Australia, and yes, Japan.

By 2016, at the age of 24, he was kicking at the stalls and ready to strike out on his own. He purchased his own single-hectare plots in the cru appellations of Brouilly and Côte de Brouilly. His 2020 Côte de Brouilly is organically farmed, and the 30-60 year old vines are rooted in schist, granite, and a light layer of sand, imparting a distinct minerality. We loved this wine’s aromas of fresh blueberry, violets, cranberry sauce, dried herbs, and crushed stones. The wine is electric on the palate, full of tension and verve with a meaty core. The fruit is rich and lush, with flavors of blackberry jam and dried plums, mushrooms, pink peppercorns, and granite.

This is a jewel in the portfolio of legendary importer Kermit Lynch’s portfolio, and if we were talking Burgundy—a label from an upstart to watch and of the most famed terroirs in the land—we’d be deep in triple-digit price territory. But that’s the miracle of Beaujolais.