Domaine de Colette Regnier Vieilles Vignes

Cru Beaujolais Extreme Value: 2019 Domaine de Colette Regnie Vieilles Vignes

This was a huge hit last year around Thanksgiving, and it's back! My distributor picked up the last of the importer's 2019, a vintage that every wine writer and critic is raving about, and I've put this delicious Regnie back on sale.

The 2019 Domaine de Colette Regnie is one of the finest Cru Beaujolais values in world. From a highly-touted vintage and coming from the village that sits just west of Morgon, this is Old Vine Gamay with serious depth of flavor and nuance.

Domaine de Colette Regnie Vieilles Vignes

2019 Domaine de Colette Regnie Vieilles Vignes

93 points James Suckling, 93 points Josh Spurling

ORDER NOW in our online store. 

Domaine de Colette is a prime example of why the wines of Beaujolais are better and more popular than ever. Located in the village of Regnie, less than a mile from the border of Morgon, this estate was founded in 1953. Today, husband and wife Jacky and Evelyne Gauthier run the estate and farm their old vines without any chemical sprays or fertilizers.

Their Regnie vines are quite old, and old vines are the key to great Gamay. As the vines get older, the grapes get a bit smaller and the skins a bit thicker. It is these smaller and thicker-skinned grapes that yield a delicious mouthful of ripe, sappy, and fresh Gamay. The Gautheir's choice to ferment and age in cement vats really lets the purity of the Gamay grape shine here.

For those who suffer from headaches and sneezing/sniffling when you drink red wines, Gamay is the cure. While grapes like Cabernet, Syrah, and Malbec can taste great, these are wines that tend to run high in both grape and oak tannin and alcohol, and it's this combination that can wreak havoc on your system. Gamay, on the other hand, is naturally low in tannin, it rarely sees new oak, and it produces a wine with more moderate alcohol.

Long story short, if you suffer from any of the aforementioned maladies, you should try this wine! Right out of the gate, this one offers up ripe and enticing aromas of red berries, forest floor, cinnamon, and earth. Certainly fuller-bodied and more flavorful than a simple Beaujolais Nouveau or even Beaujolais-Villages, the tannin is fully ripe and rounded, and it is acidity that gives this wine its structure.

It's this acidity that makes a wine like this one of the all-time great food wines. I love to serve this one lightly chilled with a platter of bread, cheese, and charcuterie, but it's also a thought-provoking wine to sip over the course of an evening. Once you buy it, it's your call!

Just in case you need a second opinion, James Suckling said, "The subtle red-fruit and floral aromas neatly fill out the medium body, the mineral character and gentle tannins giving this Régnié quite some depth and length. Excellent balance and good aging potential. Drink or hold."

ORDER NOW in our online store. 

Josh Spurling
Owner, Operator, Wine Monger
Table Wine Asheville