The gravest mistake you can make right now is dismissing this wine from Clos Bissardon because of its “Villages” designation. This is far from an uncomplicated, pop-and-pour Beaujolais—today's wine is a serious one! The raw material that brought you today’s wine flirts with the vineyards in Moulin-à-Vent, widely considered by many to be the most substantial and age-worthy of the 10 Beaujolais Crus. It is fresh and elegant, yes, and extremely easy to drink, too, but make no mistake: It’s also mind-blowingly complex for the price point and appellation, and deserves to be treated with the same reverence as icons like Métras, Lapierre, and Thévenet. 

Winemaker Richard Rottiers’ lineage is basically constructed from Chablisienne royalty, but Beaujolais is where he ultimately decided to put down his roots. He was awed by the region’s idyllic beauty; positive, collaborative atmosphere; and potential to produce majestic wines without an extravagant price tag to match. So, Rottiers acquired a tiny parcel of old-vines (40-80 years of age) in 2007, mostly within Moulin-à-Vent, and went to work crafting what I have just delightfully discovered to be some of the purest and most soulful Beaujolais bottlings on the market. If you want your Gamay buck to stretch as much as humanly possible, this 2020 has the ultimate tensile strength! This hard-to-find wine has proven to sell out fast, so don’t hesitate to snag what you can.

The globetrotting Rottiers left Chablis well before 2007, honing his craft in the vineyards and cellars of California, Gaillac, South Africa, New Zealand, and Luberon. After a stint in nearby Brouilly and a budding relationship with a local woman (now his long-term partner), Beaujolais had his heart. Rottiers, who has since doubled his holdings and converted fully to organic viticulture, has always taken an environment-first approach to farming—a priority that has informed his frequent experimentation with innovative techniques. The majority of his vines still lie within the bounds of Moulin-à-Vent, where the brittle pink granite soils and ideal east-southeast hillside exposure create the perfect conditions for the muscular yet sophisticated expressions of Gamay Rottiers favors. The mineral-rich subsoils that lie deep beneath the fragmented rock surface encourage the vines to dig deep for sustenance and help to temper Gamay’s natural vigor—in turn, producing wines of unexpected complexity and longevity. The fruit for Rottiers’ Beaujolais Villages comes from a parcel at the bottom of the hill, just behind his house, which brushes up against the Moulin-à-Vent boundary. The vines, accordingly, share the classic characteristics of the noble cru, and Rottiers treats them with identical care and attention. 

When possible, Rottiers prefers to work with whole-bunch fruit, so after a careful pass bunch-by-bunch through the vineyard at harvest, the grapes are sorted for optimal health once again when they reach the cellar. Each parcel is vinified separately so the exact approach can be tailored to each unique microclimate, but across the board, gentle extraction is essential to preserving freshness and fruit character. Fermentation is semi-carbonic, taking place first in closed vats before the wine is transferred to a mixture of old barrels and concrete vats. 

If Rottiers’ 2020 “Villages” bottling reminds you of a famous Cru Beaujolais or even a Côte de Nuits that costs twice as much, there’s a perfectly good explanation for that: scientific analysis shows an unusually high concentration of polyphenols in the wines of Moulin-à-Vent, as compared with the surrounding crus. As these wines age, their aromas often take on a sort of Pinot Noir-like balance between elegance and power. The denizens of Beaujolais actually have a word for this: pinoter. If you open the 2020 now, you’ll find plenty of classic primary red fruit—bright, fresh raspberry, cherry, and currant, in addition to a local-signature dash of iris and violet perfume—but give this wine some time to evolve, if you can. With a bit of maturity, it will really start to show that Moulin-à-Vent-adjacent pedigree, moving toward a deeper, darker profile infused with mushrooms and freshly turned earth. While in the grand scheme of things, this isn’t a big wine, in the context of Beaujolais Villages it’s unexpectedly substantial. While concentrated and dense with a healthy dose of granitic intensity, it’s also full of subtlety and elegance with exceptionally soft tannins that seem to melt in your mouth. If you can wait a year to pop the cork, you’ll find your patience rewarded—even more so if you stock up, so you can watch this develop over the next 3-5; either way, decant it 30 minutes before serving. Enjoy it like you would your favorite Premier Cru Pinots: In classic Burgundy stems, around 60 degrees, paired with boeuf bourguignon or crispy polenta topped with wild mushrooms and Comté cheese.