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Dear Arthur’s Cellar Wine Club Member:
We will be taking your orders for the glorious Moulin-à-Vent from Château des Gimarets to the LCBO this coming Friday, May 15th. We are featuring the splendid 2012 Tradition Moulin-à-Vent, the 2010 ‘Esprit de ma Terre’ and the 2010 ‘Fût de Chêne. As a special treat, we also have the Château des Gimarets Sampler containing two bottles of all three. Don’t miss out on these truly marvellous Moulin-à-Vent.
Beaujolais
In addition to being one of the most misunderstood and maligned wine regions of France, Beaujolais is also one of the two most beautiful (the other being Alsace). Its vineyards strung across the enchanted mountainsides that mark the beginning of France’s Massif Central and countless quaint villages make it a wonderful place to visit. The many fine restaurants and great wines make it darn near perfect. Situated between the cities of Mâcon to the north and Lyon to south, Beaujolais is about fifty kilometres long and between eleven and fourteen kilometres wide.
The vast majority of the wine produced in Beaujolais is red and is made mostly from the Gamay grape (officially, Gamay Noir à Jus Blanc). They are permitted to add up to fifteen percent of white varieties, but seldom do. They also make what is often a most delightful white from Chardonnay (and occasionally from Aligoté - permitted if planted before 2004). And, while there are some twenty-six hundred growers in the region, most of them sell their harvests to the few large firms that dominate the business. About ninety percent of the Beaujolais exported to North America are these négociant wines.
 Robert Parker in his tome ‘Burgundy’ notes, “Gamay seems to thrive in the stony, schistous soils of the region. Most red wine grapes have trouble producing high-quality crops in granite-based soils, but Gamay seems to be a natural. The compelling characteristic of Gamay wine is its youthful, fresh, exuberant, crunchy fruit, which the vignerons of Beaujolais have learned to maximize by producing it in an unusual method called carbonic maceration. In this style of vinification, the grapes are not pressed, but simply dumped unceremoniously into a vat in full bunches. Grapes at the very bottom of the vat burst because of the weight on top of them. That juice begins to ferment, warming up the vat and causing fermentation in the unbroken grapes to begin inside their skins. The advantage of this technique is that a wine’s perfume and fruity intensity is largely related to what is inside the grape skin. The acid and tannins are largely extracted from the breaking and crushing of the skins.”
 And then there is Beaujolais Nouveau! Beaujolais had always made a vin de l'année to celebrate the end of the harvest, but until WWII it was only for local consumption. However, in 1951, some enterprising members of the Union Interprofessionnelle des Vins du Beaujolais (UIVB) pounced upon a sensational marketing ploy by initiating a race to Paris carrying barrels of the new harvest. What a great way to unload oceans of what otherwise would become vin ordinaire and to generate terrific cash flow. And, what a great excuse for a party! Over succeeding vintages the races spread throughout Europe and North America and in 1985 the third Thursday of November became the official launch day of Beaujolais Nouveau. But, the fruity young wine became a mixed blessing for the Beaujolais. It certainly created massive market awareness for their wine producing region and can be credited for weaning many North Americans off sugar-laded blushes and leading them on their way to more serious wines.
Much to the chagrin of the producers of serious Gamay wines, Beaujolais Nouveau has created a virtually indelible image for the region … cheap and cheerful. It is very difficult for them to find markets for their wines and when they do, prices are depressed. Of course, the flip side to this dilemma is that we are able to purchase superb wines from Beaujolais for a fraction of what similar wines a few kilometres to the north in Burgundy would command.
Moulin-à-Vent
 With the town of Romanèche-Thorins (home of George Duboeuf’s massive enterprise) as its hub, Moulin-à-Vent is often referred to as the King of Beaujolais. But, the wines made there are not typical of Beaujolais and many say they bear more in common with Burgundy. As Robert Parker notes, “There is no doubt that the best Moulin-à-Vents are the richest, fullest, and most ageworthy wines produced in Beaujolais. A 7 or 10-year-old example from one of the best producers will have more in common with a Pinot Noir from the Côte de Beaune than anything produced from the Gamay grape. The production of Moulin-à-Vent, which is now creeping up towards 400,000 cases annually, has no shortage of buyers willing to pay one of the highest prices asked for any of the crus of Beaujolais. Many attribute the underlying richness and structure of Moulin-à-Vent, which produces larger-scaled, more muscular wines, to the fact that the granite-based soil is rich in minerals such as manganese. This provides a greater depth of color and flavor than Gamay is capable of achieving from the granite soils of the other crus.”
A Brief History of Château des Gimarets
 The Château des Gimarets winery was founded in the 17th century, during the reign of Louis XIV … when Molière was producing his plays, Lully was composing his music and Rembrandt was creating his paintings. The original château was built in 1650 on the foundation of a Roman Villa that even back then had been surrounded by vineyards. It was destroyed by a fire in 1780 and rebuilt in 1810 by Louis Chaumet, a French prosecutor from Mâcon. This romantic house is located in a bicentennial park amid very old cedar, oak and pine trees, facing the vineyards, near the windmill.
Eric and Nathalie Boyer purchased the estate in 2007 and proceeded to modernized its equipment and enhance the 4.5 hectares of vineyards (with their vines averaging forty-five years of age). They have adopted grape growing techniques and a blend that respect nature and employ of the best elements of modern and traditional wine-making practices in the cellar. They produce about 25,000 bottles each year. Their efforts have been richly rewarded as their top-quality wines have regularly won awards and rave reviews from the wine press. Their wines are listed in the renowned French 'Guide Hachette', and have won medals from the 'Mâcon International Wine Fair', the 'Tastevinage of Clos Vougeot', 'Les Grands Vins du Beaujolais of Villefranche-sur-Saône', the 'Féminalise of Beaune' and so on.
 Eric and Nathalie have their welcome mat out for any of our wine club members who stray into this little piece of vinous paradise. They also have a bed and breakfast which opens onto the park, should you wish to tarry a while.
Our Second Offering from Château des Gimarets
This time we are featuring the 2012 Moulin-à-Vent Tradition along with the 2010 Moulin-à-Vent ‘Esprit de ma Terre and the 2010 Moulin-à-Vent Fût de Chêne along with a mixed case Sampler containing two bottles of each. They all come in six-bottle cases. We will be taking your orders for these marvelous Moulin-à-Vents to the LCBO on Friday, May 15th.
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