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| Drinking Windows and Values |
| Community Tasting History |
| Community Tasting Notes (average 90.1 pts. and median of 90 pts. in 313 notes) - hiding notes with no text | | | Tasted by Mnawacki on 4/13/2024: Notes not taken (364 views) | | | Tasted by mattym19 on 2/19/2024 & rated 90 points: By the bottle at Parcelles in Paris. This is the ‘S’ version. I think I read somewhere that they didn’t make any ‘N’ in 2015 because it was a tough year. Nose is a bit shy, hints of cranberry and sweet green herbs. Definitely doesn’t have the explosiveness of other Lapierre Morgon I have had but I’m not sure if that’s because it’s Cuvée S or maybe it’s in an awkward phase right now. The palate is really nice though. Smooth and nicely balanced with cola and bay leaf, dried cranberries and violets. Nice length on the finish. Drinking really well right now just maybe not transformative. (1131 views) | | | Tasted by Tim Heaton on 1/15/2024: PnP. Really hasn't changed that much from my note of nearly seven years ago: still elegant, still the lighter side of medium-bodied, etc. CT says I still have a couple remaining, and if that's the case, I'll endeavor to enjoy them in the coming 2 years; no real reason to hold (this particular vintage) beyond that. Aromas and flavors skew to the late secondary offerings at this point. 13,5% abv., easily recommended (1733 views) | | | Tasted by Benoit Hardy on 7/26/2023 & rated 92 points: At the opening, big pearling sensation, the wine is almost sparkling.
3 hours later, only this sensation remains, integrated into the wine, but the sparkling has disappeared.
Intense nose of cherry, wild strawberry and peony.
Supple but crunchy on the palate. The juice is tangy, with delicious aromas of very pronounced red fruits. The wine is juicy on the blood orange after 3 hours of aeration. The beading gives it an airy side. It's quite elegant, quite a far cry from the massive fruit bombs I've tasted previously, with good balance. Strawberry and orange finish with good length.
A very beautiful mature Beaujolais. (2214 views) | | | Tasted by wayfarer on 7/1/2023 & rated 93 points: Needed a bit of air to dissipate some funk, but then just blossomed, with sensational combination of dark cherry, blackberry, earth, mineral, and as time went on floral notes. The purity of fruit on the palate was terrific, and coupled with fine acidity made it 'mouthwatering' in the best way, with fine length and finish. Really enjoyable. (1947 views) | | | Tasted by Saxman1984 on 6/3/2023: I must say that this cru Beaujolais must be one of the best wine bargains around. It is still singing after 8 years and probably will be just as delicious a few years down the road. To those people that put their noses down at Beaujolais, please stay away, that means more delicious wine for me and my
Beaujolais loving friends. (2085 views) | | | Tasted by Dionysos55 on 4/22/2023 & rated 91 points: Décanté 1h avant consommation. Bouquet: un mix fruit/fleurs assez équivalent entre la cerise et le couple iris / pivoine.C'est assez intense et plaisant.La bouche est souple,élégante avec les mêmes arômes.Ce vin a atteint son apogée et n'ira pas plus haut.Un bémol cependant: ce côté acidulé en bouche me dérange un peu alors que d'autres le trouveront attrayant.Certes,le vin est vinifié selon des normes "nature" mais est néanmoins légèrement soufré comme mentionné sur l'étiquette.Voilà pourquoi la note finale n'est pas plus haute. (2006 views) | | | Tasted by jdamaral@rogers.com on 4/6/2023 & rated 93 points: Impressive Lapierre Morgon. Cherry, earth and just a touch of brett. (which i didn't mind) Great mouth feel with a persistent finish. Classic Beaujolais Morgon typicity. These wines age well. I wish i had more Lapierre 2015's. (1967 views) | | | Tasted by tomlee on 3/30/2023 & rated 92 points: Ruby red in color. 13.5% ABV. Pretty nose of red fruits, citrus and forest floor. Medium body with perfect acidity. Fresh, vibrant and earthy. Cherry, blood orange, spearmint and black tea on the palate. Exceptional length on the finish. Really compelling Beaujolais that has only gotten better since my last bottle a little over a year ago. Best over the next several years. (1784 views) | | | Tasted by danielito on 3/30/2023 & rated 93 points: Fantastic. Barnyard, delicious sweet gamay fruit, very French character.
"S" bottling. (1603 views) | | | Tasted by MasterWis on 3/23/2023 & rated 93 points: Absolutely amazing. This is why you need to wait at least 7-8 years on those Morgon.
Open, decant 1h and then enjoy. Super intense, long. Very nice fruit. I need more (1645 views) | | | Tasted by Bakerbd on 3/7/2023 & rated 91 points: Some funk that eventually blew off, black cherry, damp earth, a larger-scaled vintage but still delicious (1912 views) | | | Tasted by EspenK65 on 2/11/2023 & rated 90 points: Frisk, fruktig, god syre, røde bær. Lang ettersmak, antydning til grønn pepper?
Gjør seg best noe avkjølt, mye vin for pengene (1751 views) | | | Tasted by tward on 2/5/2023 & rated 92 points: Excellent. The main issue I have with this wine is that it's just too damn drinkable. You put down the glass and before you know it your hand does something and you're taking another sip. It's irresistible right now. So much contained energy, zippy spiced red fruits, sweet herbs and a background thread of earth and stone. Very pure and intense and lightweight at the same time.
Can we return to being able to buy these sub-$30 USD?
13.5% abv
Note: This is the 'S' bottling (sulfites added) | M15TRS 01/09/16 (1991 views) | | | Tasted by Rezy13 on 11/24/2022: Lighter and juicier in style, tart raspberry and blueberry, pomegranate, softer and more resolved mouthfeel, fruity with savory herbal edge, tea; good but not great when up against the Diochon MaV 2019. (2066 views) | | | Tasted by Musigny1955 on 11/24/2022 & rated 93 points: {Magnum, bought on release, perfect fill, served for Thanksgiving holiday} incredibly good, complex, long and deep. Fantastic showing compared to my 2020 note for a 750 bottle. Ripe year, great producer, just took longer to show than I anticipated, great. (1933 views) | | | Tasted by Saxman1984 on 11/14/2022: Just unbelievably good. Floral,cherry, and spice notes on both the nose and the palate. No signs of age, but I can’t imagine the wine tasting any better. Love it. (1987 views) | | | Tasted by MaMinator on 9/6/2022 & rated 93 points: Enjoyed from a demi.
Intense strawberry on the nose right off the bat.
Hints of sous bois and faint faint green pepper and grafite. The smell is somehow very fresh.
Taste of re berries, dark soils, low acidity, somewhat high alcohol. This is really brilliant st this point, lots of fruit, well integrated acidity and still some tannin to be found. Elegance comes to mind. It's nice to have demis but you can't but question yourself for not getting a whole bottle when you have something like this 😂. (2188 views) | | | Tasted by 560 B&W on 8/26/2022 & rated 92 points: In a really great place right now. 13.5% (2036 views) | | | Tasted by pclin on 7/29/2022 & rated 91 points: Last bottle of 3-pack. PnP. Funky nose with some dark soils, almost toward Loire Cab Franc. Smooth and silky on the palate with some fine tannins still hanging around. Good density and length. Ripe fruits with enough acidity to balance out. No trace of alcohol at finish despite the hot vintage. Drinking well but no hurry. (2599 views) | | | Tasted by Gruffalius on 4/19/2022 & rated 91 points: Great nose. (2800 views) | | | Tasted by PaulusLoZebra on 4/3/2022 & rated 90 points: Lots of funk, it never blew off entirely, even after many hours in the decanter, not even on night two. I like some funk, but this was too much and without it I would have rated this 2-3-4 points higher. It has an impressive, complex aromatic and flavor profile, with juicy, almost tactile red and blue fruits, some florality and a lingering spiciness, all supported by excellent acidity and a fairly big body. Lots of personality and character. (2825 views) | | | Tasted by tomlee on 2/15/2022 & rated 92 points: Ruby red in color. 13% ABV. Charming nose of red fruits, earth and flowers. Medium body with exquisite acidity. Fresh and crisp. Incredibly elegant. Cherries, cranberries, baking spices and soil on the palate. Medium length on the finish. Such a pleasure to drink. Best over the next 3-5 years. (2909 views) | | | Tasted by Saxman1984 on 1/22/2022: Just wonderful. A bit of spritz upon opening, floral nose and clove like spice. Raspberry coulis on the palate, juicy acidity. No sign of age. Thankfully, I have two bottles left (2687 views) | | | Tasted by 560 B&W on 1/19/2022 & rated 91 points: Took some time for the funk to blow off, but quite enjoyable 13.5% (2772 views) | | | Only displaying the 25 most recent notes - click to see all notes for this wine... |
| Marcel Lapierre Producer website
U.S. Importer (Addt'l Info)
Marcel Lapierre, Beaujolais Producer, Is Dead at 60
By ERIC ASIMOV
Published: October 11, 2010
Marcel Lapierre, a Beaujolais grower and producer who played a leading role in rejuvenating the diminished reputation of the region’s wines, died Sunday in Lyon, France. He was 60.
The cause of death was melanoma, said Kermit Lynch, the American importer of his wines. Mr. Lapierre was a rigorous, relentlessly experimental winemaker. He and a group of three other producers were instrumental in demonstrating to the world that Beaujolais had far more to offer than its often insipid mass-market nouveau wines.
Rather than these fruity, happy-go-lucky concoctions, Mr. Lapierre and his colleagues, Jean Foillard, Guy Breton and Jean-Paul Thévenet, produced wines of depth, nuance and purity that nonetheless retained the joyous nature of Beaujolais.
Mr. Lynch remembered the first time he tasted a Lapierre Morgon, from the 1989 vintage. “That bottle was so convincing to me,” he said on Monday. “He and his gang were so different from everything going on.”
Mr. Lynch long ago called Mr. Lapierre and his like-minded colleagues the Gang of Four. The name stuck, even as the loose group of friends came to include many more than four.
Mr. Lapierre was born April 17, 1950, into a country exhausted by two world wars. When salesmen appeared, offering new, labor-saving technologies, chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, many vignerons did not require much convincing to cast aside the labor-intensive traditions of generations. The result was a sort of banalization of Beaujolais.
The problems for the region were eventually made worse by the growing popularity of Beaujolais nouveau. When Mr. Lapierre took over his family’s domain in Villié Morgon in 1973, the quaint harvest custom of making a new wine for immediate consumption was about to explode into a worldwide phenomenon. By the end of the 1970s, with the aid of aggressive promotion, cities from London to New York to Tokyo would be counting the minutes until the third Thursday of each November, the official release date, when wine shops could unveil the stored cache and proclaim, “Le Beaujolais nouveau est arrivé.”
The popularity of nouveau tilted the priorities of the region. As more and more Beaujolais production went into nouveau, growers no longer made a pretense of striving for quality. When the market for nouveau diminished, growers in the lesser regions of Beaujolais were stuck with an oversupply of poor wine, and the public was stuck with an image of vapid wine meant to be drunk immediately.
In the 1970s, Mr. Lapierre made his wines in the conventional manner of the times. But by 1981 he had come under the influence of Jules Chauvet, a Beaujolais wine dealer and scientist who advocated avoiding the use of chemicals as far as possible. Mr. Lapierre adopted organic viticulture, decided he would no longer add yeast to induce fermentation, and reduced or eliminated the amount of sulfur dioxide he would add to the wine.
Sulfur dioxide has been used as a preservative in wine for centuries, but can alter the experience of a wine, the way viewing a work of art through glass differs from a direct view. Used in excess, it can mask a range of sins, and many leading winemakers today try to use as little as possible. But to use no sulfur is risky and requires absolute rigor in shipping and storing the wines.
“It affects the very shape of the wine,” said Mr. Lynch, who does not buy wine without sulfur from any producer other than Mr. Lapierre. “The wine with no SO2 is very voluptuous and rounded. With SO2 it’s very squared-off to me.”
In recent years Mr. Lapierre’s son, Mathieu, had taken over winemaking duties for his father. Mr. Lapierre is also survived by his wife, Marie, and two daughters, Camille and Anne.
Why had he changed his methods in 1981?
“Because the wines I made didn’t satisfy me, and the wines from elsewhere that I liked weren’t made in the modern style,” he told the quarterly The Art of Eating in 2004.
“I’m just making the wine of my father and grandfather,” he said, “but I’m trying to make it a little better.”
GamayPlant RobezFrance Vins de France (Office National Interprofessionnel des Vins ) | Pages Vins, Directory of French Winegrowers | French Wine (Wikipedia)
Wine Scholar Guild vintage ratings
2018 vintage: "marked by a wet spring, a superb summer and a good harvest"
2019 vintage reports
2021: "From a general standpoint, whether for white, rosé or red wines, 2021 is a year marked by quality in the Rhône Valley Vineyards. Structured, elegant, fresh and fruity will be the main keywords for this new vintage."
2022 harvest: idealwine.info | wine-searcher.comBurgundy Les vins de Bourgogne (Bureau interprofessionnel des vins de Bourgogne) (and in English)
Burgundy - The province of eastern France, famous for its red wines produced from Pinot Noir and its whites produced from Chardonnay. (Small of amounts of Gamay and Aligoté are still grown, although these have to be labeled differently.) The most famous part of the region is known as the Cote d'Or (the Golden Slope). It is divided into the Cote de Beaune, south of the town of Beaune (famous principally for its whites), and the Cote de Nuits, North of Beaune (home of the most famous reds). In addition, the Cote Chalonnaise and the Maconnais are important wine growing regions, although historically a clear level (or more) below the Cote d'Or. Also included by some are the regions of Chablis and Auxerrois, farther north.
Burgundy Report | Les Grands Jours de Bourgogne - na stejné téma od Heleny Baker
# 2013 Vintage Notes:
* "2013 is a vintage that 20 years ago would have been a disaster." - Will Lyons
* "low yields and highly variable reds, much better whites." - Bill Nanson
* "Virtually all wines were chaptalised, with a bit of sugar added before fermentation to increase the final alcohol level." - Jancis Robinson
# 2014 Vintage Notes:
"We have not had such splendid harvest weather for many years. This will ensure high quality (fragrant, classy and succulent are words already being used) across the board, up and down the hierarchy and well as consistently from south to north geographically apart from those vineyards ravaged by the hail at the end of June." - Clive Coates
# 2015 Vintage Notes:
"Low yields and warm weather allowed for ample ripeness, small berries and an early harvest. Quality is looking extremely fine, with some people whispering comparisons with the outstanding 2005 vintage. Acid levels in individual wines may be crucial." - Jancis Robinson
# 2017 Vintage Notes:
"Chablis suffered greatly from frost in 2017, resulting in very reduced volumes. As ever, the irony seems to be that what remains is very good quality, as it is in the Côte d’Or. Cooler nights across the region have resulted in higher-than-usual acidity, with good conditions throughout the harvest season allowing for ripe, healthy fruit." - Jancis Robinson
# 2018 Vintage Notes:
"The most successful region for red Burgundy in 2018 was the Côte de Beaune. The weather was ideal in this area, with just enough sunlight and rain to produce perfectly balanced wines naturally." - Vinfolio
Beaujolais Vins du Beaujolais (L’Union des Vignerons du Beaujolais)
The vineyards on weinlagen-info
Wine Scholar Guild Vintage Chart & Ratings
# 2009 Vintage Notes:
"There will be a lot of absolutely delicious Beaujolais to try in 2009, as it is indeed a very good, atypically ripe and opulent vintage for Beaujolais. As others here have mentioned, the Louis-Dressner and Kermit Lynch portfolios cover many of the very best estates (with an honorable mention for importer Weygandt-Metzler), and just choosing from their strip labels is a very good jumping off point. As a quick primer, the three best Beaujolais and Beaujolais-Villages producers that I regularly cross paths with are the aformentioned Jean-Paul Brun and his Domaine Terres Dorées, Pierre Chermette of Domaine du Vissoux and Domaine Dupeuble from the Kermit Lynch's portfolio. I also find the Beaujolais-Villages from Joseph Drouhin consistently excellent and very classic in style and like all of this firm's Beaujolais, a completely underrated source for very top drawer Crus and B-Villages.
Amongst the Cru Beaujolais, it is important to keep in mind(again as folks have mentioned already) that certain villages tend to produce much more structured wines, and this will be very evident in a powerful vintage like 2009. In general terms, the wines from Moulin-a-Vent, Morgon and Cote de Brouilly are going to demand a bit of bottle age to really start to drink well in 2009, and these may not be the best growers to focus on when tasting through the vintage to draw your own conclusions. But in these appellations, if you keep in mind that what you are tasting is likely going to need five years of bottle age to really blossom from these crus, you cannot go wrong with Kermit Lynch's "Gang of Five" producers- Thevenet, Lapierre, Foillard, Breton are four of the five- as well as Georges Descombes and Louis et Claude Desvignes from Louis-Dressner. I also like very much the Morgons made by Louis Jadot and Joseph Drouhin for the big houses, and Jean-Paul Brun also makes a very good example of Morgon.
In Moulin-a-Vent, Louis Jadot's Chateau des Jacques makes a very good range- though always structured when young- and Bernard Diochon is excellent year in and year out. Pierre Chermette also makes superb Moulin-a-Vent and the Drouhin version is consistently exceptional. In Cote de Brouilly, the two most exciting producers are Nicole Chanrion and Chateau Thivin (both represented by Kermit Lynch). The Chanrion is usually very accessible out of the blocks for this very stony terroir (it is an extinct volcano), while the Chateau Thivin bottlings demand time and are usually tight and structured when young. Better to try the delicious straight Brouilly from Chateau Thivin if you want to drink one of their wines out of the blocks, as that never demands patience and is lovely.
In the less structured Cru villages, wines I particularly like are the aformentioned Clos de la Roilette in Fleurie (they are the Chateau Yquem of the village- though their vines are right on the Moulin-a-Vent border and the wine used to be sold as Moulin-a-Vent before the AOC went into effect, so they are a bit more structured than most Fleuries), Cedric Chignard, Jean-Paul Brun and Pierre Chermette are all very, very good sources. Domaine Diochon in Moulin-a-Vent also makes a good Fleurie, as does Joseph Drouhin. In general these will be more floral, open and sappy bottles of Beaujolais out of the blocks and they will be delicious from the get-go.
In St. Amour, Domaine des Billards makes absolutely brilliant wines and is one of my favorite producers in all of Beaujolais. In Julienas, Michel Tete is the star producer, but I also like the Drouhin bottling from here very well indeed. There are many more outstanding bottlings to be found scattered thorughout the crus and I am sure that I am forgetting several worthy estates, but this at least will give you a good "to do" list to get started with the vintage. The only '09s I have tasted thus far are the Joseph Drouhin wines, which I tasted through in Beaune in March, and they are deep, sappy and beautifully soil-driven. If all the other top estates have made wines in this style, then this is indeed going to be a very special vintage for the region. But with the wines from Morgon and Moulin-a-Vent, you may do better trying a few bottles from either the 2006 or 2007 vintage if you can find them well-stored, as these are less structured vintages and both are beginning to really drink well from these villages." - John Gilman
# 2014 Vintage Notes:
"The 2014 vintage in Beaujolais is absolutely terrific and probably, along with 2011, the best vintage in the region since 2005. The region has had a bit of a rollercoaster ride in the last few years, with an absolutely phenomenal vintage in 2011 (particularly for those of us who like to age our Beaujolais for several years prior to serving), one of the most difficult growing seasons in recent memory in 2012, a good, solid classic vintage in 2013, and now, again, another truly outstanding vintage in 2014." - John Gilman
"2014 [...] vintage is a return to the mineral-cracked freshness and explosive low-alcohol red fruit the cru level wines of this region are famous for but have lacked since 2010/2011 (without the potentially hard/green/diffuse/underripe character found in many 2012/2013's)." - Jon Rimmerman
"the 2014s exhibit lively berry and floral character punctuated by zesty minerality. The wines are concentrated yet not heavy, and show good structure without coming off as outsized. Many producers I visited in June described the wines as a hybrid of the 2010s and 2011s, combining the structure of the earlier vintage and the fruit intensity of the latter. As such, the 2014s, as a group, are hugely appealing right now but I have no doubt that they will reward another three to five years of aging. Many of the brawniest 2014s have the material to see them through a decade or more of life but by that point they’ll have little resemblance to most peoples’ notion of Beaujolais, so I’d advise drinking almost all of the ‘14s before they hit their tenth birthday." - Josh Raynolds
# 2015 Vintage Notes:
"Vinification will not be straightforward and the 2015 vintage will be a reflection of the quality of the winemaker." - Jean Loron
"the wines have the potential to age and evolve beautifully" - Michael Apstein
# 2016 Vintage Notes:
"a harvest of soft, amply fruity wines, though without the depth and density of the outstanding 2015 harvest." - Wine Scholar Guild
# 2017 Vintage Notes:
"Trade body InterBeaujolais has said the 2018 harvest in the region will “go down in history as a legendary vintage” alongside the likes of 2017, 2015 and 2009." - Rupert Millar
#2018 Vintage Notes:
"The heatwave of July and August led growers to anticipate rich, high-alcohol wines akin to the excellent, but atypical, 2015s. However, probably due to the reserves of groundwater accumulated prior to June 20th, the 2018s are, as a rule, fresher, with slightly higher acidity and considerably lower alcohol than their counterparts from 2015. There is, nonetheless, an appealing fleshiness or rondeur to many 2018s, which suggests they won’t keep for as long as the more mineral 2017s – which are really hitting their stride now – but makes them highly seductive from the word go.
Another interesting theme, which we encountered in wines from various domaines across different crus, is a Cabernet Franc-like leafy character towards the back of the palate, which contributes an extra degree of freshness and buvabilité." Will Heslop Morgon The vineyards on weinlagen-info
With 1100 ha of vines, Morgon is the second largest Cru after Brouilly, producing wines that are only marginally less powerful than those of Moulin-à-Vent. Certainly Morgon’s are the firmest in the region, with a bouquet of great purity and compact Gamay fruit. Morgon needs more time than other Crus before it can be broached - normally 2-3 years for its most serious exponents – and develop its rich, savoury flavours which lead to a Pinot Noir-like maturity. The ‘Classico’ heart of the Morgon region is the Mont du Py, just south of the commune of Villié-Morgon. The finest wines almost exclusively come from its Côte de Py slope, whose aspect and rich schistous soil contribute to greater ripeness, and yield wines that are denser than anywhere else in the appellation. As you would expect from a region of this size the character and quality of Morgon can vary considerably, but the best are as good, and as sturdy and long-lived, as any other Beaujolais you will find. Recommended Producers: François Calot, Maurice Gaget, Louis-Claude Desvignes.
See also Morgon Details |
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