The fruit comes from 50 year-old vines in a lieu-dit named “Les Monthieux,” located in the commune of Lantignie, considered the finest in Beaujolais villages. The terroir is composed of clay and limestone soils with a favorable southwest exposure. Whole clusters of grapes are fermented, and then macerated for six days to extract characters of fruit and finesse. The wine is aged in old, non-reactive 50-hectoliter puncheons with no barrel aging so as not to introduce any overt oak aromas or flavors that may otherwise interfere with the purity of the fresh fruit. The wine shows great finesse, elegance and a very “easy drinking” nature

Wine maker notes

Nicolas Potel, in just a few vintages, "has alreadyestablished himself as a superstar" in teh view of Clive Coates MW. Nicolas is now applying his talents for selecting, vinifying and blending pure, sensual Pinots from the Cote d'Or to Gamay from the crus of the Beaujolais. His wines are mad in a style and to a standard which will impress even the skeptic who thinks that Beaujolais can only be a simple, light, fragile red wine. Joining with Stephane Aviron, another youthful Burgundian ruthlessly dedicated to quality, Nicolas has taken over a small cellar and is producing a range of cru Beaujolais under the Potel-Aviron label. This enterprise is and will remain very small and artisanal, focusing on lots of several hundred cases of any one bottling. The philosophy of the house is to seek out the finest terroirs capable of giving wines of real concentration, depth of flavor and individuality. This begins with an extremely rigorous selection of parcels situated in teh very best sites of each commune, with very old vines from 35 to 70 years of age. Nicolas adn Stephane also insist on pruning which will limit yields, a primary criterion of selection. Vinification is traditional, largely discarded in teh rgion to obtain the desired concentration and structure. Unusually, all the wines are aged in small oak barrels of which 20-25% are new for a period of 10 to 11 months. The aim is to marry the tannins derived from the oak with the richness of fruit from very old vines, thus combining structure with texture and flesh.