Blaise Carron (France) Beaujolais 2000
If there is a less well understood red wine that Beaujolais then I don’t know of it! Though famed for the rush on the third Thursday of November to get the Nouveau on the shelves, there’s an awful lot more to the region from top producers and the top individual village appellations. This comes from Roger Harris wines, who are Beaujolais specialists. Their very personal selection is well worth investigating. This example has a delicate, lifted, floral nose with hints of pear-drop and even ripe banana. There’s an undercurrent of rasberry and redcurrant fruit, then onto the palate it offers a medium-bodied but quite silky mouthful of cherryish fruit, with a firm core of tannins. There are quite broad, deep undercurrants of strawberry and plummy fruit, before crisp acidity seizes the finish leaving this moreish and very food-friendly. Also from Roger Harris I enjoyed the Chiroubles 2000 – one of the top Beaujolais villages – from Domaine de la Grosse Pierre for its vivid fruit and savoury complexity (8.45) and the terrific oak-aged Cote de Brouilly cuvee Zaccharie 1999 from Chateau Thivin, which is full, round and sweetly-fruited with a lush, hedonistic depth most unlike lots of run of the mill Beaujolais. Not cheap at 11.35, Roger Harris Wines