Winemaker Notes
The 2023 vintage of “Raisins Gaulois” is as lively as any Lapierre has ever produced. It’s raised sulfur-free for just two months in cuve, which seems like barely enough time for fruit juice to become a wine– but that’s the whole point! Pure Gamay bottled unfiltered with a convenient screw cap and iconic label to boot. You can take it anywhere: the beach, a grassy field, a movie theater? It’s a wine for the present to keep parched palates hydrated with something raw and refreshing. Cheers to that.
There is something rebellious about the Beaujolais, about its wines that make you want to drink from your heart and not with your head. They’re wines that have the power to satisfy something deep within—the carnal instinct to imbibe, perhaps. And while there is no shortage of fabulous cru and village Beaujolais to choose from in the Kermit Lynch Beaujo-sphere, there is one that seems to embrace the uninhibited essence of the region like none other: Lapierre’s Vin de France “Raisins Gaulois.”
The name translates to something straightforward and entirely fitting: “Wine of France”– meaning, nothing fancy appellation-wise–even though most of its fruit grows firmly in the region’s illustrious cru of Morgon. And “Gallic Grapes,” a nickname inspired by their ancestors once inhabiting the region, the Gauls, who used to store whole bunches of grapes in stone vats before fermentation. This technique later evolved into today’s carbonic maceration, a fruit-enhancing practice for which the region is famous. To vinify this ultra lightweight red, siblings Camille and Mathieu let young vines grow freely in order to reach yields beyond the strict limits for the appellation, which unburdens them from intensity and concentration.
