Julien Duport La Boucheratte Côte de Brouilly 2020

Julien Duport’s father was not a vigneron, but a fireman, un pompier. However, the estate planted by his grandfather and great-grandfather remained in the family, igniting Julien’s imagination from an early age. For Julien, work is not about putting things out but setting them on fire. At the age of 21, Julien took over farming his family’s parcels. He completed an undergraduate degree in enology at the local Bel Air college and worked with winemaker Laurent Martray and others. His first commercial vintage was in 2003, but the world is just now learning about the genius behind his wines.

Julien is what we, from the comfort of our desks, would call a Renaissance man. His reverie for the ways of the past is infused into every aspect of what he does. For one, he farms his inherited vineyards with a horse and plow. A chore that could take days turns into weeks, and Julien uses this extra time in the vineyard to meditate and be amongst his vines. The transition from the vineyard to the cellar also remains in step with how his grandfather used to do things. He ferments in cement tanks using only native wild yeasts and without sulfur. The wines enjoy a long élévage in neutral barrels and large foudres and are then bottled without any filtration or fining. His wines are a historical throwback to the time when Beaujolais growers used to sell their wine in barrels, long before carbonic maceration became the trendy winemaking technique that has now usurped the rich and interesting wines of the past. 

La Boucheratte is a vineyard in Côte de Brouilly, the schist-flecked island of Mount Brouilly within the appellation Brouilly. This vineyard is planted to vines 102 years old, which in turn delivers a wine more complex and black than any Beaujolais we’ve enjoyed…maybe ever. It’s incredible that vines this old are producing at all anymore, and even more incredible when you taste the La Boucheratte. Part of the wine’s intensity comes from the windiness of the site, which leads the Gamay skins to get tough and thick and filled with tannin. This is not your fizzy, fun, run-of-the-mill Beaujolais. Pair with smoked meat this summer and take part in Julien’s personal renaissance. It’s a delicious movement to be a part of!