Jean-Paul Brun is a quiet man who lives in a rural, cobblestone medieval village just Northwest of Lyon, within southern Burgundy. The village, Charnay, sits dead center in the so-called “Terres Dorées,” an area named after the golden calcareous stones lining its rolling hillside vineyards. One can find wonderful chardonnay-based country wines here, but the area’s reds suffer an “ugly duckling” syndrome—most likely because the local soil generally lacks the composition necessary to compete with the world class Pinot Noir and Gamay of neighboring appellations. So, early on, Jean-Paul began looking northward to the cru villages of Brouilly, Moulin-à-Vent, Morgon, and Fleurie in search of vineyard parcels capable of producing distinct, cellar-worthy “vins de garde”.  Brun also sidestepped the Beaujolais tradition of producing soft, carbonic macerated, whole berry/cluster “Beaujolais-style” reds. Instead, he follows the philosophy of nearby Burgundy by ruthlessly hand sorting and destemming all fruit at harvest. His top crus, like the Fleurie “Grille Midi”, are aged (and often also fermented) in neutral Burgundian oak barrels. The result is a pantheon of wines that are thirst quenching, aromatic, and terroir-driven as all great Beaujolais must be, but that are never marred by the heavy hand of carbonic fermentation or vinification style. Each wine is a transparent and unique expression of its vintage, vineyard, and village of origin. So, perhaps it is unsurprising then, that in the last decade the global wine world has elevated Jean-Paul from a quiet farmer into one of the most celebrated names in this region. Whether it’s Gault-Millau, the New York Times, the Wine Advocate, Jancis Robinson MS—or the tattooed bartender at your local hipster wine bar—these are some of the most consistently and lavishly praised wines in the Beaujolais.

Out of Jean-Paul’s broad selection of outstanding old vine red cru Beaujolais bottlings, this wine is his most expensive and rare. The 2014 “Grille Midi” takes its name from an ancient granite amphitheater in the village of Fleurie. This particularly warm geological formation is universally regarded as one of, if not THE top parcel in Fleurie, and is home to this brilliant vines—which are the oldest in this area, most recently replanted 65 years ago. This small, prized parcel is dry farmed organically and is one of the last that Jean-Paul hand-harvests each fall. Only the best, most uniformly perfect clusters from the oldest vines are set aside for this wine. After destemming, grapes are fermented in concrete before a long gestation in neutral Burgundy barrels before bottling (with famously and impossibly low sulfite levels!) and release.