While we’re off on a Javernieres tangent, Burgaud generously permitted me to taste his 2007 Morgon Cote de Py Javernieres, of which he separately-bottled only a single barrique (i.e. 25 cases), and I am not about to leave my impressions unrecorded, even if very few of us reading this will ever have an opportunity to actually drink one of the rare bottles, nearly all of which were sold to Burgaud’s Swiss importer. Gamey, alkaline, and faintly sweaty notes dominate somewhat over black fruits on the nose, but the wine’s sense of oxidative development proves entirely felicitous on a palate that is smoothly polished in texture and hauntingly suffused with game, forest floor, crushed stone, and sweetly-saline, crustacean-marine mystery. Furthermore, there is ample sweetness of black fruits left in the long finish of this elegant and fascinating wine. The 2008 might well “l(fā)ive” longer than this 2007 – which owners would certainly want to cellar with caution – but I am dubious that it will ever compare for intrigue.If there were any doubt that Jean-Marc Burgaud’s talents match his considerable ambitions, his 2009s should put them to rest, as few if any finer collections of Beaujolais are likely to have been rendered in this or any other vintage. “They tasted good on the vine, good in the fermenter, good before malo, good after malo, and, so far, good in the bottle. Good balance, fine acidity, perfect maturity, zero grams of unfermented sugar, and alcohol from 13% to 13.5% – excellent but not excessive,” is the way Burgaud laughingly litanizes his results, but the wines are far more colorful – indeed, exciting – than that summary suggests. Given their quality and distinctiveness, one has to forgive Burgaud his proliferation of cuvees – indeed, anybody lucky enough to latch onto a share of his limited bottlings from this vintage will want to profusely thank him! Burgaud elected to give his early bottlings a light filtration – and was contemplating the same approach for his (“regular”) Cote de Py – because he said he wanted to preserve their vivid fruit, whereas they would have had to stay in barrel through summer to clarify sufficiently on their own. (If there were any ill-effects of that filtration on his early bottlings, I clearly couldn’t discern them.) Except for his three rarest cuvees – aged entirely in demi-muids or barriques – elevage of each Burgaud wine is spread between tank and demi-muids.A Thomas Calder Selection (various importers), Paris; fax 011-33-1-46-45-15-29; also imported by Ideal Wine and Spirits, Medford, MA; tel. (781) 395-3300