Clos de la Roilette Fleurie, 2021

100% Gamay. "Alain Coudert’s Clos de la Roilette is a longtime favorite Fleurie producer whose wines should not be overshadowed by newer, more faddish names.” -Eric Asimov, The New York Times, April 2016

Being on the border of the Moulin-à-Vent cru, the core of Roilette’s Fleurie terroir is atypical of Fleurie, rich in clay and the mineral manganese instead of all granite; the wines are thus more structured than many Fleurie wines. This bottling comes from vines averaging 30 to 45 years old. They are farmed sustainably and the soils worked by hand, only twice a year and very carefully in order to not do damage to the older plants’ roots. The fruit is hand harvested and fermented in whole clusters with native yeasts in open-top, neutral vats with the cap kept submerged; the maceration for the Fleurie is approximately 14 days. Aging takes places in old foudres until bottling in the summer following harvest.

Considered one of the finest producers in Beaujolais, Clos de la Roilette has 9 hectares in Fleurie, with one of the top slopes in all of the ten Beaujolais crus. The Clos has an eastern exposure, borders the Moulin-à-Vent appellation, and yields remarkably age-worthy Gamay. In the 1920’s, when the Fleurie appellation was first created, the former landowner was infuriated with losing the Moulin-à-Vent appellation under which the estate had previously been classified. He created a label using a photograph of his racehorse Roilette and used the name Clos de la Roilette, without mentioning Fleurie. By the mid-1960s, the owner’s heirs had lost interest in Roilette, and a large portion of the land had been allowed to go untended and wild. In 1967, Fernand Coudert bought this poorly maintained estate and replanted the vineyards. His son Alain joined him in 1984 and has been the winemaker since. The Couderts feel that their particular terroir (mainly clay and manganese) and the age of their vines (30 to 80 years old) account for the richness and intensity of their wines. They are deeply colored, richly perfumed and seriously structured wines of relatively small production.