Vinified with stems and whole clusters and with a single pump-over for each of seven days, the Burgaud 2009 Beaujolais-Villages Chateau de Thulon smells of ripe blackberry and cassis with a subtly smoky, saline, not unpleasantly sweaty overtone. Ripe yet by no means superficially sweet black fruits and invigorating salinity persist on a seamlessly-rich but refreshing palate. This lovely exemplar of its ubiquitous appellation should be enjoyed over the next 12-18 months. 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 and Langdon Shiverick, Los Angeles, CA; tel. (213) 483-5900

Attractively in balance, this wine, from 40-year-old vines, shows concentration to go with its red currant flavors. It is fresh, touched by tannins, worth keeping a few months, but already its fruit is openly delicious.——R.V.(11/1/2009)—— 85