Elisa Guérin is one of the rising stars of French wine. At just 32 years of age, she is already making wines that rival the best-of-the-best in her home region of Beaujolais.
Her 2022 Chiroubles, from the highest elevation Cru Village of the region, is a revelatory wine. Coming from a tiny, 1.2 acre parcel of 60-100-year-old Gamay planted in sand and pink granite, it is a masterful, savory, and complex red wine.
2022 Elisa Guérin Chiroubles
Complex, complete, and compelling Cru Beaujolais from a young master!
While Elisa might be young, she knows the terroir(s) of Beaujolais like the back of her hand. She grew up here, and was raised with childhood friends Ophélie Dutraive and Alex Foillard. After her studies in agronomy in Dijon, she returned to her family's estate, and her father Philippe officially passed the family torch, making Elisa the 4th generation steward of the family terroir.
She makes joyous wines that drink beautifully in their youth, but her Chiroubles is also quite intense and it will age well over the next 5 to 7 years. Vintage 2022 was a great yet small one for the vignerons of Beaujolais -- hot and dry conditions provided optimal conditions, and the wines can generally be categorized as approachable yet powerful.
That is certainly the case with Guérin's 2022 Chiroubles, a wine that requires a bit of air and agitation to settle into its greatness. The nose is so fantastic -- dried rose petal and violet, ripe cherry and dark cherry, damp earth, black tea, forest floor, and more. Just as delightful on the palate, this is Gamay with structure in the form of healthy tannin and good acidity. As the wine sits in your glass or decanter, it develops and gets tastier and more harmonious by the minute.
Elisa Guérin enjoying one of her wines.
While this does not need further aging to be enjoyed, I suspect that with 5 years in the cellar, it will develop more Burgundian style and complexity. I'm dreaming about a bottle of this with a roast chicken and roasted potatoes.
If you can't sense my excitement about this wine, please re-read this post : )
