90 Points Vinous
The 2023 Cote de Brouilly comes from the base of the hill on a mixture of schist, sand and granite soils. It was raised two-thirds in concrete, one-third in barrel for nine months and bottled in August 2024. This has an open-knit bouquet with fleshy red cherry, raspberry and figgy scents. The palate is medium-bodied, clean and fresh, with light, silky tannins and a touch of sour cherry on thee understated finish. Open for business already, I can imagine much of this will be drunk in its flush of youth
Winemaker Note
The soil at the bottom of the Côte de Brouilly, where Alex Foillard owns and farms a couple of acres of vines, is rich in schist and granite. Now, minerality in wine is subjective and imprecise, but I experience it here both as a texture—the flaky, sparkling schist and the coarse-grained granite—and as a slightly briny note on the finish. If you are looking for an exemplar of minerality in red wine, this might just be the bottle for you. Or, if you rolled your eyes at all that wine-nerd lingo and are seeking a delicious Beaujolais with some interesting complexity wrapped in a cozy blanket of ravishing red fruit, then this also is the bottle for you.
