Terres Dorées - Fleurie "GRILLE MIDI" 2018

William Kelley from The Wine Advocate (Robert Parker): 95 pnt

"Jean-Paul Brun's 66-year-old vines in this prime lieux-dit have yielded a superb 2018 Fleurie Grille-Midi, a striking wine that unfurls in the glass with complex aromas of black raspberries, rose petals, smoked meats and violets. On the palate, it's medium to full-bodied, deep and satiny, with a bottomless core of concentrated fruit, velvety tannins and ripe acids, concluding with a long and sapid finish. This is a brilliant, age-worthy Fleurie worth special effort to track down."

The 2018 vintage is Jean-Paul Brun's 40th, and he can look back with some much deserved satisfaction on a career that has done so much to validate the potential for quality in the southern Beaujolais, as well as a portfolio of wines that exemplify like few others that a more "Burgundian" approach to vinification can be made to work well with the Gamay grape. Destemmed fruit and macerations lasting as much as four weeks, followed by élevage in used barrels, are the order of the day here, and Brun's excellent 2018 portfolio includes several terrific cuvées that Beaujolais lovers will not want to miss. Everything reviewed here comes warmly recommended.

Drink date: 2021 - 2038