Domaine Anita Morgon Cuvée Château-Gaillard 2023

The Morgon Cuvée Château-Gaillard from Domaine Anita comes from the Château-Gaillard plateau, in the village of Villié-Morgon, in the heart of the Beaujolais crus. The plot, facing south and south-east between 250 and 285 metres above sea level, rests on crumbly crystalline rocks, typical of the decomposed granites of Morgon. Its Gamay vines, around 70 years old, produce bunches of small, highly concentrated berries every year.

About 70% of the harvest is vinified as whole bunches and 30% destemmed. Daily punching down accompanies a maceration of around twelve days, before a gentle pressing in a low-pressure horizontal press. The wine is then aged for seven months in concrete tanks, then matures for three months in bottle before being released.

This wine reveals notes of plum, black cherry, cherry stone, blackberry, liquorice, forest floor, smoke and warm stone. The deep colour heralds an expressive nose dominated by stone fruit, extended by smoky and mineral touches. The palate is powerful and structured yet velvety, supported by fine tannins and a long finish on black fruit.

The cradle of wine culture in Western Europe, France owes its first vines to the Greeks of Phocaea, who settled around Marseille some twenty-six centuries ago, before the Romans spread viticulture along the Rhône and the Garonne and as far as Champagne. In the Middle Ages, Cistercian and Benedictine monks cleared the slopes of Burgundy and patiently mapped out the climats, laying the foundations of the notion of terroir. The 19th century brought the glory of the classifications, then the disaster of phylloxera, which wiped out the vineyards before they were rebuilt on American rootstocks; the creation of the appellations d'origine contrôlée in the 1930s then set the rules that would inspire the whole world. Today, France vies every year with Italy and Spain for first place in world production by volume and remains the ultimate benchmark of the Old World, as much for its age-worthy wines as for its winemaking models. Vineyards cover almost the entire country, from the cool north of Champagne and Alsace to the Mediterranean shores of Languedoc and Provence, by way of the oceanic climates of Bordeaux, the Loire and the South-West, continental Burgundy, the steep slopes of the northern Rhône and the high-altitude valleys of Savoie and the Jura. This mosaic of soils – limestone, schist, gravel or rounded pebbles – explains the extraordinary diversity of styles. As for grape varieties, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot dominate Bordeaux and produce structured reds, Pinot Noir is the signature of Burgundian finesse, Syrah of the depth of the Rhône, while Grenache, Gamay, Cabernet Franc and Mourvèdre cover every register, from easy-drinking wines to wines for long ageing. Among the whites, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin, Riesling and Viognier offer expressions ranging from lively and mineral to unctuous, all the way to great sweet wines. A land of benchmarks and constant discoveries, France remains the compass for wine lovers the world over.