Jean-Paul & Charly Thevenet Morgon La Roche Pilee 2023
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The Land
Morgon's reputation rides on the Côte du Py and its decomposed schist, so it is worth saying plainly: La Roche Pilée comes from somewhere else. The parcel sits on slopes just above the village of Villié-Morgon, 300 to 350 meters up, on rocky decomposed granite rather than the roche pourrie of the Py. Granite is Beaujolais bedrock, and here it has weathered into a coarse, free-draining grit that stresses the vines and drives roots deep. The cuvée name means crushed rock, which describes the soil and doubles as a warning about the wine. The holding is 1.25 hectares, planted in 1953 and again between 1980 and 1990.
The Wine
Gamay, hand-harvested. Whole clusters go into tank for a carbonic maceration of 10 to 15 days at low temperature, fermented with indigenous yeasts and worked infusion-style, with no punchdowns and no pumpovers. Élevage is 6 to 8 months in concrete tank, and the wine is bottled unfined and unfiltered with sulfur added only at bottling, then released a month later. Deep garnet, with blackberry and blueberry preserve, violets, and sweet baking spice up front, then acidity and a gravelly, stony grip the fruit rides on top of instead of smothering. The 2023 growing season delivered a warm dry flowering in early June, a dry summer, and a scorching late August; Gamay picking across Beaujolais began September 1, and the crus came in ripe and structured.
The People
Jean-Paul Thévenet took over the family domaine in Villié-Morgon in 1976, at the peak of the region's chemical-farming boom, and at first farmed exactly as his father had. His childhood friend Marcel Lapierre, working under the guidance of the local biochemist and vigneron Jules Chauvet, talked him out of it. Thévenet dropped synthetic treatments and in 1981 attempted his first natural wine: hand-picked fruit, whole-cluster fermentation on vineyard yeasts, no chaptalization, very little sulfur. It took until 1985 to get it right. He, Lapierre, Jean Foillard, and Guy Breton became the Gang of Four, the name importer Kermit Lynch gave the Villié-Morgon holdouts. Those four cellars are the reference point for nearly everything natural wine has done since. The domaine farms biodynamically and is seeking organic certification.
Food Pairing
Serve it around 55 degrees. Roast chicken rubbed with tarragon and shallot, pan juices spooned over, is the obvious answer and the correct one, because the acidity keeps pace with the fat and the fine tannin has nothing to fight. Coarse country pâté with cornichons and grainy mustard works the same way, with the salt pulling the fruit forward. Seared duck breast in a sour-cherry pan sauce mirrors the wine's own dark fruit. For something meatless, lentils braised with carrot, thyme, and a lot of black pepper meet its stony side. This is the bottle you open on a Tuesday and finish without noticing.
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Weather shipping advisory: Orders placed during times of extreme heat or extreme cold will be held for no charge until more favorable weather returns.
Beaujolais stands on its own as a unique source of the world's greatest Gamay wines and one of the birthplaces of the natural wine movement. The 10 crus on the north side provide the most serious versions including Morgon and Moulin-a-Vent, but the more basic reds further south are vibrant and affordable. There's also a rare white made from Chardonnay.
Beaujolais
A red wine grape most associated with Beaujolais, Gamay makes fresh, fruity red wines with berry and violet aromas. It is grown around the world outside of France where it is often a darker and less tannic cousin to Pinot Noir in cool climate regions such as Oregon and Victoria.
