I recently attended an education seminar on Beaujolais Appellations d’Origine Controlee (AOC) and was immediately struck by their emphasis on SOIL. Their welcoming poster boards read: “To understand our terroir, we must go back 180 million years ago to the marine invasion of the Jurassic Period”; “It took 300 million years to form our terroir;” “The soil in our region originated 400 million years ago, with the eruption of underwater volcanoes.”
Then when the seminar began, they spoke of the two grapes, gamay noir à jus blanc and chardonnay, grown in the two regional appellations (Beaujolais and Beaujolais Villages) and the 10 Beaujolais Crus and how over 300 different soils, the dominant rocks being the 180-million-year-old limestone, the 300-million-year-old pink granite and the 400-million-year-old blue stone have produced the amazing variations of Beaujolais wines.
The Gamay grape, a natural cross between Pinot Noir and Gouais Blanc (which interestingly are the same parents of Chardonnay), ripens early and makes a bright red and lively wine with aromas of raspberry, strawberry, blackberry and black cherry. But enough verbiage … how about a quiz?
