Description
“Beaujolais icon Jean Foillard is among France’s most revered vignerons … there may be no more consistently fine red wines in all of France than Foillard’s Morgons and Fleurie.” Rare Wine Company
“.. it’s an open secret that this is one of the region’s finest as well as most consistent addresses .. his bottles are typically models of aromatic purity and graceful aging. I regularly purchase these wines for my own cellar and warmly recommend them to readers.” William Kelley, The Wine Advocate, May 2020
Jean Foillard is one of the great winemakers in France and, in his hands, wine is no ordinary thing. Jean and his wife Agnès live just outside the small village of Ville-Morgon in a large, old white farmhouse that they have renovated beautifully. Jean started making wine in 1982; first at the family domaine then after a few years he branched out on his own and started to rent and buy his own holdings (including a large, perfect parcel on the Côte du Py: the most celebrated climat in all of Beaujolais).
Jean Foillard is a fervent supporter, like Marcel Lapierre, of the natural wine growing and making methods of the legendary Jules Chauvet. This includes keeping whole clusters of grapes in vats for 2 to 3 weeks at a low temperature before fermentation, using only natural yeast, no pumping, no fining and no filtration. Furthermore he ages his wine in barrels brought from the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti….. the results are sublime. He is a cult wine hero amongst the very many young, free-spirited vignerons in France who are now looking back to nature to make fine wine.
Morgon from Foillard shows wonderfully fresh, pure aromas of cherries and blackberries combined with a haunting, otherworldly complexity that is distinctly Foillard. The word diaphanous is perfect to describe the aromas of his wines; you can almost smell through them. In the mouth, again there’s a wonderful transparency. Crunchy, fresh fruit is complemented by a satiny, silky structure and some delicate spice. Elegant, soft, smooth and pure, in many ways these wines have more in common sensually with Chambolle-Musigny than regular, ‘run of the mill’ Beaujolais. A must try wine for wine lovers who have not yet discovered this treasure of ‘true’ Beaujolais.
ABOUT this vintage: Following Jean’s opulent and expressive 2022 wines—so beautifully transparent and promising in their aging potential—We’d heard the 2023 vintage was a return to classic Beaujolais, distinct from the richer recent vintages, and that’s exactly what these wines deliver: sap-driven energy, stony precision, silky texture, effortless charm, and above all, exquisite balance.
The 2023 vintage was superb and these wines display classic expression—fresh, elegant, and brimming with the signature silkiness that Jean consistently captures. While the vintage brings admirable concentration, the wines remain vibrant and lifted, with jellied red fruit, alluring floral and spice nuances, and that caressing, velvet-like mouthfeel. As ever, they are wonderfully succulent in youth and impeccably poised.
92 points, Neal Martin, Vinous “The 2023 Morgon Cuvée Corcelette comes from well-drained granite soils and is aged for nine months in used barrel. It has a perfumed bouquet of incense that blossoms with aeration, as touches of brown spice infuse the red fruit. The palate is medium-bodied and transparent with finely chiselled tannins, exquisite balance and a dab of white pepper towards the sustained finish. This very classy Morgon is difficult to resist.“
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