Domaine Pauline Passot Chiroubles Grille-Midi 2022

The Land

Chiroubles has a reputation as the lightest and earliest-drinking of the ten Beaujolais crus, and altitude is the reason. It is the highest cru, most vineyards between 250 and 450 meters, which in a cool year can leave Gamay thin. In a hot year it is the whole advantage. Grille-Midi is a recognized lieu-dit on the upper plateau of Chiroubles, worked by several growers in the village, and Pauline Passot's parcel there sits at roughly 480 meters, the highest ground she farms. The soil is pink granite, weathered in place to a coarse sand that drains fast and keeps vines from getting fat. South-facing, thin-soiled, and high: that combination is why this Chiroubles red holds its line in a vintage that cooked the valley floor.

The Wine

One hundred percent Gamay from Chiroubles, picked by hand and fermented whole-bunch with semi-carbonic maceration and no added yeast. The estate wines rest 8 to 11 months in concrete, and Grille-Midi is the one cuvée that also sees time in large, older oak vessels, which rounds the texture without adding any oak flavor. Sulfur is held back until bottling. 2022 was one of the earliest vintages on record here: the harvest ban for red Beaujolais opened August 17, sixteen days ahead of the long-term average, after a July and August that ranked among the hottest and driest in three decades, with 43.5°C recorded in the shade in the southern Beaujolais on August 4. A localized April frost trimmed the crop. Dark cherry, crushed violet, wet granite, fine chalky tannin, a long saline finish.

The People

Pauline Passot came to Gamay sideways. She studied business, poured wine in a Dublin wine bar, and worked the floor as a sommelier at Pierre Orsi in Lyon until 2013, then did harvests in New Zealand and Chile before going back to Beaune to study winemaking. She started her own label in 2016 with less than a hectare of her grandfather Georges's old vines, and in 2018 took over winemaking at the family property, Domaine de la Grosse Pierre in Chiroubles, now producing around 40,000 bottles a year. She is the third generation on the estate, after Georges, who bought the property in the 1960s, and her parents Alain and Véronique. The vines are farmed organically. Her whole approach argues that Chiroubles can be a serious cru rather than a charming one.

Food Pairing

Granite-grown Gamay with this much acidity wants fat and smoke. Roast a duck breast, score the skin, render it hard in a dry pan, and finish it pink: the wine's tannin is fine enough to slide under the fat without fighting it. Coq au vin, built slowly with lardons and pearl onions, meets the dark cherry head-on. Grilled lamb chops with rosemary and coarse salt work for the same reason the duck does. And a plate of charcuterie with cornichons, where the wine's salinity does the job mustard would. Serve it at cellar temperature, around 58°F, on a weeknight when you want a bottle that drinks like it was thought about.