Jean-Claude Lapalu

Jean-Claude Lapalu – Natural

With Jean-Claude Lapalu’s wine you can detect the fists behind the fruit. This is one of the new crew of sternly-made rock steady cru Beaujolais. Grapes are hand-picked and sorted, loaded by conveyor to avoid damage, and given neither SO2 nor cultured yeasts during the fermentation. During 8-10 days maceration a wooden grill is used to enhance extraction. The wine stays at least a half year on its fine lees gaining power and complexity. And yet the Brouillys are neither heavy nor clumsy and one could easily imagine them ageing ten to fifteen years. Croix des Rameaux, from beautifully exposed prime parcels of eighty year old vines and aged in three-to-five year old barriques after a long cuvaison, disports a wonderfully wild nose of leather, tar and red cherry and palate-punching dark fruits: stylistically it seems to straddle Burgundy and the Rhône.

 

Imported by Les Caves de Pyrène

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