Bulletproof, Long-Haul Beaujolais
2013 Bouland Morgon: Corcelette and Delys
"One of Beaujolais's major as well as most consistent talents."
-David Schildknecht
At this point, Daniel Bouland is firmly established as one of Beaujolais' top producers.
I've recently received a handful of emails from different people saying how beautiful a bottle of Bouland they'd just opened was.
For people used to the style of Beaujolais of Kermit Lynch's Gang of Four, Bouland represents a much different take on Beaujolais. One that's much more structured and benefits from time in the cellar. That helps explain the sudden outpouring of emails. They were all for bottles with 3-5 years of age.
 |
Bouland's style is deep and muscular with staining intensity. It carries this with an interesting combination of rusticity and flash. All of this is wrapped around a stern core of granite minerality that boldly announces itself from start to finish.
To start with the Corcelette, it's sourced from a lieu-dit, which you may know from Foillard's bottling of the same name. Corcelette is a site of sandy granite. Bouland's version, which comes from 60 year old vines, is much more powerful than Foillard's, but the site's style remains: it's elegant with effusive aromatics of flowers, granite, and spice. The 2013 is an incredibly fresh example of the site while having plenty of structure and density.
In contrast, Delys is more about muscle and staining intensity. It comes from 85-year-old vines and produces Bouland's most structured and ageworthy wine.The Delys shows off dark berry fruit, smoke and spice along with pretty, floral top notes. It all gets wrapped around an energetic mineral core draped in gentle but persistent tannins. Again the 2013 is a lovely example of this site.
2013 is a vintage that we really like and grow more fond of as the wines have time in the bottle. It's in a similar vein as vintages like 2007 and 2010. It's a light, nervier vintage and this carries the mineral, floral and earth notes of these two Boulands really well.
Bouland's wines remain very fairly priced. Given the way that they evolve in the cellar, picking up the mixed 6-pack is something that we strongly advise. There are few better deals for midterm cellaring.
To order, reply to offers@crushwineco.com or call the store at (212) 980-9463.
Joe Salamone
Wine Buyer
Crush Wine & Spirits