Joseph Chamonard Morgon 'Le Clos de Lys' 2012
A nice bottle of Beaujolais makes me smile. There are a lot of wines from the region which are both complex and structured, thus far apart from the Beaujolais Nouveau wine style and very interesting to try. It was a pleasure to open a bottle of Chamonard's Morgon 'Le Clos d Lys' during our six course dinner last Saturday as fellow wine bloggers gathered together for an evening of wines and great food. The evening was arranged in Ceestashop in Helsinki (address Töölöntorinkatu 5).This Beaujolais is a fine example of gamay grape produced with low intervention by the winemaker during the winemaking process. Domaine Chamonard aims for natural production and the wines are made without adding any sulphite, using only native yeast in natural fermentation. Chamonard practices organic farming although the domaine is not officially certified as organic.
Delicious, especially if you prefer your wines to be sensitive and layered - i.e. not with huge concentration of jammy fruit and with a high alcohol content. The Morgon's structure is what you appreciate the most, the wine is on the palate so layered that its components are easy to pick up. It has notes of strawberry (benchmark for the region's wines) along with dark fruit & blueberries, with small amount of greenish, forest floor and herbal notes in a positive sense, and even a bit of a meaty feeling. The elements combine into a medium bodied wine with a soft finish.
The grapes have been hand picked from a small vineyard in Morgon, the 'Clos de Lys'. This is a nice wine to enjoy now or wait for a couple of years, and I personally would be intrigued to taste it after a decade. A bottle trades between €13-€20 making it a value buy.
Domaine Joseph Chamonard is a small tradiotional Beajolais producer with only little over 4 hectares of vines. The domaine is currently run by late Joseph's daughter, Genevie, and her husband Jean-Claude Chanudet.
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| Iberico's cheek, barley "risotto" with celery, choi-sum and marsala sauce |
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| Chef Aikasalo |
My Chamonard was an ok pair with the main course of tender Iberico pork's cheek, barley with celery, choi-sum and marsala sauce. However, to my personal liking the other two wines which were from Spain, Dominio de Pingus' Psi 2009 (Ribera del Duero) and Totem Wines' Ibizkus 2010 (Ibiza) were better matches with the dish. I am not taking anything away from the Chamonard Morgon which is a very pleasant wine in itself, however as far as food pairing goes, the dish had stronger flavours which suited better the slightly stronger wines.
Read more on Totem Wines' interesting Ibizkus 2010 from Mikko's blog (written in Finnish):
http://ruoka.fi/blogit/rypaleista-viis/viinibloggareiden-illalinen-2010-totem-wines-ibizkus
And visit Ceestashop for any wine glass and decanter purchases or to buy quality foodstuff:
http://www.ceestashop.fi/
