Beaujolais Blanc producers take over Beaujolais Nouveau Day

Winemakers gathered in London to showcase Beaujolais Blanc, as the region builds excitement for its Chardonnay’s pairing potential.

The third Thursday of November is one of the few immovable dates in the wine calendar. Every year it celebrates the arrival of Beaujolais Nouveau, historically the first French wine to hit the market after a vintage. However, an event at the Water House Project, organised by the Fédération des Négociants-Eleveurs de Grande Bourgogne (FNEB), used the region’s annual celebration to promote Beaujolais Blanc.

Aside from a welcome drink of Beaujolais Nouveau, a nod to the style’s ubiquity, the event focused purely on Chardonnay expressions from across the region. Subtitled ‘Sip and Symphony’, the lunch involved both the traditional pairing of food with wine and an innovative matching of the wines to newly commissioned music.

Hosting the event, sommelier Gaëtan Bouvier was keen to highlight the potential of Beaujolais Blanc in on-trade settings where food matching is key. He emphasised the phenolic maturity of Beaujolais Chardonnay, as well as its elegance and generous texture. According to Bouvier, awarded the title Best Sommelier of France in 2016, those attributes are crucial to matching the concentrated aromas found in fine dining establishments.

Putting theory into practice, chef Gabriel Waterhouse, formerly of Michelin-starred Galvin La Chapelle, presented a tasting menu that accompanied eight wines. Despite the commonalities of region and variety, the diversity of the wines was illustrated in their pairing potential. The selection matched with varied, complex dishes, such as smoked potato with roe and walnut; Orkney scallop with apple, celeriac and lovage; and mallard with beetroot and rose.

For the music, guests enjoyed a collaboration between composer Olivier Depardon and performers Benjamin Gasiglia and Ash Cloke. Each wine arrived with a bespoke composition, with attendees having provided inspiration for the writers via advance tasting notes.

With just guitar and voice on display, the experience again caught the interplay between common building blocks and diverse styles. Indeed, Depardon’s advice was to hunt out, even across different expressions, the common threads: “look for leitmotifs that are recurrent across the wines and the music.”

Beyond serving as a showcase for eight producers, the FNEB hopes that more distributors, stockists and consumers will take notice of the region’s white wines. Although comprising just 4% of production, it believes the wines have the potential to build a reputation among discerning consumers. “People now don’t drink a lot of wine, but better and less,” says Bouvier, “and Beaujolais Blanc offers something a bit exclusive.”

As for producers, they are eager to drive forward the style’s development. “We discovered 300 different soils with our classification as a UNESCO Geopark in 2018,” explains Marine Descombe, of producer Famille Descombe. “We found a lot of soils specifically great for the whites, so now it’s the right time.”

Some of these, such as the limestone rich Pierres Dorées area, are already being promoted as distinctive styles. The faith in terroir is evident speaking to producers. Even the daunting figure of its most famous neighbour seems to Descombe more a template rather than a threat: “Burgundy is very successful and so I hope Beaujolais will follow and create its own style.”

Ultimately, the producers seem optimistic in hitting a gap in the market. “I think people now drink more and will drink more white wines,” says Descombe. “The future of the whites is huge.”