Nothing to wine about

originally appeared in TravelWeekly Australia 22 August 2008
by Justin Wastnage

For fine food and wine it is hard to look beyond some of the prominent areas of France. Resident wine enthusiast Justin Wastnage took a recent trip to the Beaujolais region and experienced a bit of the good life for himself


For my wedding my brother had bought me a case of Château Yveline. This reasonable Claret was recommended to him by his girlfriend's father, Fabrice, a likeable wine importer from Aix-en-Provence, the lavender scented town pitched in the mouth of the Rhône river. "The last gasp of civilisation before you reach Marseilles", is how he describes Aix.

Fabrice is a talker, as am I. Over seven courses of barbequed seafood, foie gras and rustic pork sausisson one balmy August night we discussed the relative qualities of France's wine regions.

Bordeaux, he asserted that night, was overrated with many of the better wines' prices artificially inflated by the US export market. The Chinese like to drink their $100 bottles of Château Lafite-Rothschild mixed with 7-Up, he claimed. Burgundy, meanwhile, was a far more noble wine region, with its softer pinot noirs and cool climate chardonnays providing a much better advert for France's wine industry than the hearty cabernet sauvignons that dominate Bordeaux.

But my interest was piqued that night mainly by Beaujolais. As I swam around the icy pool clearing my head after the fourth bottle of the local Coteaux d'Aix-en-Provence young red wine, I wondered how this region lying between Burgundy and Côtes du Rhône could be so maligned.

Winding my way into Villefranche-sur-Saône, the main town in Beaujolais, the region's agricultural credentials were on full display. It was grey and overcast the day I took the bus from Lyons. Winding up past yellow stoned houses shuttered up against the frigid air, tractors ploughed the fields and workers toiled on vines. The labour-intensive goblet pruning style used in Beaujolais was late this year, explained Guillemette Laferrère, my guide.

French winemaking is bound by rules. Australians experiment with grape varieties, experiment with blending techniques and experiment with fermentation. French wines, on the other hand, are guided by centuries of tradition. Soil types, grapes and growing area are all controlled minutely by Appellation côntrolée laws. For the ten best wine growing areas, as well as Beaujolais, long pruning of the vines - common across the rest of the world - is forbidden. This, explained Laferrère, was why the pruning was stretching out of March into early April.

The pale town hall building in Villefranche stood as a proud reminder of these age-old traditions. Twelfth century inhabitants of the Mairie had defended Villefranche's free town status, rejecting bribes, taxes or other imposts across the province it controlled. Today the massive toll plaza of the A6 motorway is visible from the town's summit and the low rumbling of trans-European traffic bypassing the region a constant reminder of how Beaujolais has slipped in importance.

The name Beaujolais conjures up the new, young wine available to us every Christmas. Beaujolais produces the first wine of the year, a primeur. The Gamay grapes are a mere six to eight weeks off the vine before the first bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau hit the shelves in November. The light, fruity wine is best drunk chilled, making it more popular around the time of an Australian summer than the beginnings of the European chill.

Beaujolais Nouveau gets a drubbing, however, from wine critics who mistake its lightness for a lack of depth. So says Pascal DuFaitre, manager at the Château de Pizay, the oldest winemaker in Morgon, one of the Beaujolais crus. Wines have been produced at the site since the 10th century when it served the monks of the Cluny Abbey. The château itself resembles a Roman villa and there is a Roman road passing alongside.

We descend into the tasting cellar. The dank air of a thousand years of wine maturation fills my lungs. Lit by dim bulbs, DuFaitre takes several bottles of various vintages and places them on a trestle table. Underneath, the creak and groan of pebbles is an unwelcome distraction.
The winery produces some chardonnay, just because it always has done, since the days the priests requested it for morning drinking, says DuFaitre. A good rosé is also produced. "One night of maceration is enough to give birth to the rosé Beaujolais," he says.

But DuFaitre comes into his stride extolling the virtues of the reds. Not only of Beaujolais itself (of which Château de Pizay only releases half of its 750,000 hectolitres as Nouveau), but of the Morgon, Brouilly and the very rare Régnié the winemakers also produce. The latter, he explains, demonstrates the complexity of the Beaujolais region. The nose is of red fruits - blackberry, redcurrant and raspberry - while the palate has a subtle and fresh attack and is well-rounded in mouth with a crescendo final, DuFaitre says.

Walking around the gardens is a pleasure in itself. In 1070 a surrounding wall was erected by the lords of Pizay, which was strengthened in 14th century. These, together with the formal garden with manicured bushes, keeps an charm to the place impossible to replicate in a new world winery.

The Château de Pizay has a 62-room four-star spa and resort in its medieval buildings. Antique furniture brings those looking for a romantic getaway close to the gourmet heaven of Lyons.

A drive around the cellar doors is possible if you understand the codes. A red sign hangs off nonedescript gates. Down the country lane you may find a small producer with several hundred bottles to sell or Georges DuBœuf, the largest exporter of the region's wines says Laferrère. "It's the luck of the draw," she explains.

To break up the 30 minute journey to Lyons, the Rendezvous de Bobosse invites us into sample the local fare. Nothing from outside 100km is allowed through its doors and into either restaurant or providore. "People ask for Coquilles-St-Jacques on our dégustation menu, but where can you find scallops in the middle of the countryside?" Bernard "Bobosse" Juban asks. Instead, the jambon persilé (ham in a parsley jelly) tête de porc (pork brawn), andouillette (offal sausage), sabodet (black pudding) and cervelas (saveloy) are all from locally-raised pigs.

Cold cuts like this, enjoyed with a glass of Beaujolais, are reason enough to come back to France. That and the case of wine waiting somewhere for me