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Appellation · France

Beaujolais-Villages

The middle tier of Beaujolais, covering thirty-eight villages in the granite hills of the north.

Beaujolais-Villages AOCcontinentalmoderate
What to expect in the glass

Light-to-medium bodied red with bright red cherry and raspberry, low tannin and high acidity, sometimes with a peppery or floral edge. Serve it slightly cool.

About Beaujolais-Villages

Beaujolais-Villages covers thirty-eight communes in the northern half of the region, where the soils turn from limestone to granite and the wines get appreciably more serious.

It sits between generic Beaujolais and the ten named crus, and is where a reader should start if their only experience of the region is Nouveau.

Gamay on granite is a genuinely distinctive combination, and the wines have far more structure and savour than the region’s reputation suggests.

What the name means

Legal name
Beaujolais-Villages AOC
Type
Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée / Protégée (AOC / AOP)
Set by
INAO
Regulates
Origin, plus grape varieties, maximum yields, minimum ageing.

The delimited area, permitted varieties, maximum yields, minimum alcohol, pruning and training methods, and in many cases minimum ageing. Administered by INAO.

Grapes

Wines from here

red

Beaujolais

Light, juicy Gamay, often made by carbonic maceration — the archetypal chillable red.

Soil and geology

Underlying geology
Granite and schist in the north, in contrast to the limestone and clay of the south
Soils
Thin, sandy, granitic soils
Drainage
Free-draining
Water holding
Low

What it does to the vine. Granite weathers to a poor, sandy, sharply draining soil that keeps yields naturally low. The southern half of Beaujolais, on limestone and clay, is more fertile and gives the lighter wines sold as plain Beaujolais.

WineHQ describes soil in terms of what it demonstrably does — drainage, heat retention, water supply, rooting depth — and not in terms of flavours it is said to transmit. Vines take up ions, not aromas, and no mechanism has been demonstrated by which a mineral in the ground is tasted in the glass. See soil and drainage.

What to eat, and how to serve it

Derived from this region’s signature styles. Each is listed separately, because a region does not have one serving temperature.

Beaujolais

Serve at 12–14°C (lightly chilled).

Try with grilled chicken, fillet steak or asparagus.

Where to go next

Places worth trying if you like this one — neighbours, rivals, and the obvious step across.

  • Morgon — The sturdiest of the Beaujolais crus, on decomposed schist, and the one that ages most convincingly into something resembling Burgundy.
  • Fleurie — The most perfumed of the Beaujolais crus, and the one whose name has done most for its sales.
  • Brouilly — The largest of the Beaujolais crus, wrapped around a hill that carries a separate and more concentrated appellation of its own.
  • Mâcon-Villages — The Mâconnais’ workhorse white appellation, and where most people first taste unoaked Burgundian Chardonnay without realising it.

Sources

Sources consulted