Appellation · France
Morgon
The sturdiest of the Beaujolais crus, on decomposed schist, and the one that ages most convincingly into something resembling Burgundy.
Medium-bodied red with black cherry, kirsch and an earthy depth, with more tannin and grip than any other Beaujolais. Good young and better at five years.
About Morgon
Morgon is the most structured of the ten Beaujolais crus, and the Côte du Py — a hill of decomposed schist at its centre — is its finest site.
The wines are darker, firmer and more tannic than the rest of Beaujolais, with black cherry and kirsch, and they reward five to ten years in bottle. Aged Morgon takes on an earthy, savoury character that regularly fools tasters into calling it Burgundy.
Morgon was the centre of the natural-wine movement that began in Beaujolais in the 1980s, and several of the growers associated with it — Lapierre, Foillard, Thévenet — worked here.
What the name means
- Legal name
- Morgon 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
Soil and geology
- Underlying geology
- Decomposed schist with iron and manganese, known locally as roche pourrie — "rotten rock"
- Soils
- Friable weathered schist, especially on the Côte du Py
- Drainage
- Free-draining
- Water holding
- Low
What it does to the vine. The weathered schist of the Côte du Py is friable enough for roots to penetrate deeply while draining freely, which restrains vigour and gives smaller, thicker-skinned berries than the granitic sand elsewhere in the region.
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.
Rules worth knowing
Confirmed in the EU register
Morgon is registered as a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), file number PDO-FR-A1024, protected at EU level since 1973.
Article 107 of Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013
Specification published: Official Journal C, C/2025/1999, 2.4.2025 · Official Journal
Only the rules that change what to expect in the glass or on the label. WineHQ does not reproduce production specifications, and each entry carries the date it was last checked because appellation rules change.
The designation is confirmed above. WineHQ has not read this appellation’s production specification, so it publishes no yields, ageing minima or permitted-variety lists for it — those come from the document linked above, not from a summary of it.
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.
Cru Beaujolais
Serve at 14–16°C (cellar cool).
Try with turkey, sausage and mash or vegetarian dishes.
Where to go next
Places worth trying if you like this one — neighbours, rivals, and the obvious step across.
- 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.
- Moulin-à-Vent — The most powerful and longest-lived Beaujolais cru, named after a windmill and grown on manganese-rich granite.
- Beaujolais-Villages — The middle tier of Beaujolais, covering thirty-eight villages in the granite hills of the north.
Approximate centroid: 46.19°, 4.68°. WineHQ stores coordinates only where it has them, and does not estimate boundaries it has not sourced.
Sources
Sources consulted
- Institut national de l’origine et de la qualité (INAO) — INAO, France
- Inter Beaujolais — Union Interprofessionnelle des Vins du Beaujolais