Producer Profile
Grégoire Hoppenot
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Having spent some time on the senior team at renowned Beaujolais négociants Trenel, Grégoire Hoppenot has now stepped into the spotlight with his own excellent domaine at Les Roches in Fleurie, with his debut vintage coming in 2018. After years traversing the Beaujolais region in his previous role it was time to find his feet in his own vineyards, getting a real sense of place and expressing it in the wines that he makes. He says that his job is to convey the purest expression of a wine’s origin, its terroir, and the vintage and he works hard among the vines to achieve that.
His domaine embraces two slopes with very different characteristics, and between those slopes there is much diversity too, variations in geology, aspects and exposures, and altitudes. He has five distinct ‘climats’ across the two slopes, where he farms on organic lines (he is converting but has yet to be certified). Les Garants is truly typical of Fleurie, poor granite soils with quartz quite visible, overlooking the village itself with a south-south-west aspect and densely planted vines that can be up to 60 years old. At Les Moriers, just under a kilometre shy of Moulin-à-Vent, just under three hectares are granite too, but with a sandy element that deepens as the slope descends from 340 metres, and the vines look north-east. Here the vines can be up to 90 years old. Clos de l'Amandier is a monopole of the estate, in the south-eastern part of Poncié, one of the finest of Fleurie climats. Its steep slopes face south to south-west, soaking up the sun all day. Corcelette is a virtual wall of stony soil, its granite soils very shallow to the point that the bedrock breaks through in places, as if it weren’t hard enough to farm. And, last but not least, his vines at Les Roches itself are up to 50 years old, planted in nutrient poor, shallow granite and sand dominated soils spread over a plateau between 260 and 330 metres above sea level.
Harvesting at all the sites is manual, for very practical reasons as well as for reasons of quality. Yields are, as one might expect for such an assiduous vigneron, low for the region. Grapes are fermented in whole clusters employing only indigenous yeasts, with maceration times varying with each site and in each vintage, depending on the conditions. Extractions are gentle with the cap of skins kept submerged during fermentation, and temperatures kept below 30°C. Once the fermentation is complete, the wines are matured in a variety of casks and barrels plus some concrete vats, with times varying depending on the site and vintage. Clos de l’Amandier, Les Moriers and Corcelette are bottled under their own name, with two blends, Indigène and Origines pulling together the fruit from Les Roches and Les Garants.
Regional Note
Beaujolais
At its best, there is little that can match Beaujolais’ fragrant, sappy, fruity flavours. Beaujolais tends to be a delight to drink upon release; indeed, extolling the wines' youthful virtues has been hugely successful.
At one time more than half the crop of this region was hurriedly fermented and sold as Beaujolais Nouveau, released on the third Thursday of November and raced to market in as many inventive ways as possible. Its cheap price and fun image made it popular for a while but, inevitably, quality suffered and Nouveau fell out of fashion in the face of new world competition.
Away from Beaujolais Nouveau, another kind of Beaujolais continued to be made, often using very traditional methods of production and reflecting a complexity of terroir that still comes as something of a surprise.
Beaujolais lies between the towns of Mâcon and Lyon with most of the vineyard confusingly coming into the Département du Rhône. The vast majority of the region’s 18,500 hectares is planted with a single red grape: gamay, or to be more precise, gamay noir à jus blanc. Often densely planted to help control the vines vigour, and therefore yields, trained low and pruned hard, they are need at least a short spell of real heat to ripen properly. In terms of soil, gamay does not do well on sedimentary rock types. Much of Beaujolais is granite with outcrops of schist in part of Morgon or Andesites in the Cote de Brouilly.
A little over 200 hectares is planted with chardonnay, which is growing in popularity because it is easier to sell and can be turned into sparkling Cremant de Bourgogne. White Beaujolais is sold either as Beaujolais blanc or Beaujolais-Villages blanc, and the best comes areas with chalk in the soil.
Below is a list of the appellations, but it is worth mentioning that the most important factor in the wines’ quality is the grower.
Beaujolais: Mostly from the south where the soils are often of a limestone called pierres dorées, which makes excellent building material. But there are granites as well and a great many styles of wine possible though a major part of the productions continues to be made as Nouveau.
Beaujolais-Villages: These wines come from the north and are set among the ten crus and planted on the same granitic soils. 38 parishes are allowed to produce Beaujolais-Villages. They offer a midway point between generic Beaujolais and the greater complexity of the crus.
The ten crus, from north to south, are: Saint-Amour, Juliénas, Chénas, Moulin-à-Vent, Fleurie, Chiroubles, Morgon, Regnié, Brouilly and Côte de Brouilly. Each have their own unique variation on the local geology and topography, climatic conditions and character; from the light, fragrant Chiroubles to the richer, more concentrated Moulin-à-Vent with its ability to age and comparison in great years with top Burgundies.
Within these crus are specific vineyards, or climats, with deserved reputations for high-quality, such as Poncié in Fleurie or Côte du Py in Morgon. For a more thorough examination of these crus and their characteristic traits please see our How to Buy Beaujolais guide in the Wine World & News section of our website.
Vintage Note
Beaujolais Vintage 2018
As with Bordeaux, we bought Beaujolais heavily in 2018 because the vintage is excellent. The wines have perfume and plenty of vibrant fruit whilst maintaining freshness, as acidity levels were good.