Chénas Cuvée P'tit Co Les Brureaux 2024

This cuvée from Domaine Anita comes from Chénas, the most confidential of the Beaujolais crus, in the north of the vineyard area, on the border with the Mâconnais. It is born in the lieu-dit Les Brureaux, a plot facing east and north-east, at around 270 metres above sea level. The Gamay vines, around 45 years old, sink their roots into a silica-clay soil that yields grapes with small, flavourful berries.

Vinified to showcase the fruit, half of the harvest is kept as whole bunches and half is destemmed. Maceration lasts about eight days, before a slow pressing in a low-pressure horizontal press. The wine is then aged for six months in concrete tanks, then rests for three months in bottle before release.

This wine reveals notes of violet, black cherry, blackberry, blackcurrant, pepper, liquorice, peony and graphite. Beneath its garnet colour, the floral bouquet mingles with black fruit and a spicy touch. The palate is delicious and balanced, carried by elegant, well-coated tannins characteristic of the appellation, through to a long finish lifted by a saline hint.

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.