One of the greatest random wine shop finds of my life; one of the few remaining bottles made by Julie Balagny, a Beaujolais producer who was really pushing boundaries for the Gamay grape, but then she suddenly passed in 2023 (in her mid 40’s) and of course her already tiny output ceased, and the remaining wines jumped from like $40-$50 each to $250+ due to secondary market fuckery. Found one for $60, 2022, her last vintage. Worth every penny.
Kinda reminds me of Daniel Bouland but with much brighter tart acidity. Surprisingly lush purple spiced plum with only very faint salinity and violets. Nose is like a great gamay mated with a Saint Joseph or some other old school syrah. Cleaner than I expected. The natural wine thing is a little more obvious on the palate, which is way brighter than the nose suggests. Really vibrant and salty, nice very very fresh purple fruit and so on. Some surprising structure also. Unusual mix of playful and serious. A beautiful craft cut short.
Thanks to u/drinkwineveryday for the reminder to try her wines.
thewhizzle
Hope you were able to snag this before her unfortunate passing
3 Comments
One of the greatest random wine shop finds of my life; one of the few remaining bottles made by Julie Balagny, a Beaujolais producer who was really pushing boundaries for the Gamay grape, but then she suddenly passed in 2023 (in her mid 40’s) and of course her already tiny output ceased, and the remaining wines jumped from like $40-$50 each to $250+ due to secondary market fuckery. Found one for $60, 2022, her last vintage. Worth every penny.
Kinda reminds me of Daniel Bouland but with much brighter tart acidity. Surprisingly lush purple spiced plum with only very faint salinity and violets. Nose is like a great gamay mated with a Saint Joseph or some other old school syrah. Cleaner than I expected. The natural wine thing is a little more obvious on the palate, which is way brighter than the nose suggests. Really vibrant and salty, nice very very fresh purple fruit and so on. Some surprising structure also. Unusual mix of playful and serious. A beautiful craft cut short.
Thanks to u/drinkwineveryday for the reminder to try her wines.
Hope you were able to snag this before her unfortunate passing
Banger