2019 Chiroubles

Damien Coquelet’s stepfather, Georges Descombes, is a legendary pioneer of the modernist, natural winemaking school of Beaujolais. Coquelet set up shop by himself, under his own name, in 2007, at the age of 20. He now owns two-and-a-half hectares of vines in Beaujolais and Beaujolais-Villages and leases another six-and-a-half in Beaujolais-Villages, Morgon, Chiroubles and Chénas. Coquelet makes his wines with whole clusters and native yeasts via carbonic maceration, fermented and raised entirely in concrete tanks and with just a bit of sulfur added at bottling. While the wines can sometimes reveal a wild streak, they are, some consider, in the “natural” camp of Beaujolais, but I almost always find them relatively civilized and joyous to drink, even on release.