Fleurie Vieille Vignes, Domaine de la Madrière, Stéphane Aviron 2020

Stéphane Aviron, La Chapelle de Guinchay, Beaujolais

With the help of Nicolas Potel, Stephane Aviron is focusing on the best sites to find old parcels of vines that will produce mineral, elegant and intense wines. His Fleurie Vieilles Vignes (more than 40 years old) is silky and velvety and enjoyable young but, like with his other wines, the winemaking style will also ensure longevity. Stéphane attended Beaune viticultural school at the same time as Nicolas Potel and they immediately became very close friends. Whilst also owning a business that specialises in a quality-focused bottling service for many top Beaujolais producers. His list of grower contacts is formidable thanks to his father who was one of the top courtiers in the region for many years. This knowledge helped him to get to know the best vineyards within many top estates. Setting up his negociant business with Nicolas Potel in 1990 with the intention to craft his own wines in the cellars of these top producers, managing single vineyard sites of very old vines, and doing the élevage in barrique, with a view to making the great Beaujolais that reigned supreme in the 1930’s and 1940’s and that aged so gracefully. In 1990, his first vintage, all wines were aged in 100% new oak barrels. Whilst for such great vintage it made sense to vinify the wines to allow them to age for 30-50 years, today’s market seeks a much less marked new oak thumbprint, so the new oak has subsided and is now not really an element in his wine making except in exceptional circumstances. Originally labelled Potel-Aviron, the wines are now presented as Stéphane Aviron to reflect his hands on the winemaking. The wines are effectively ‘Domaine’ wines as the grapes originate from (usually) one very old vineyard, and are harvested, vinified & bottled at the estate. ‘La Madrière’ is his ex-wife’s family.

This fine Beaujolais has plenty of colour and a perfumed nose of crushed red fruit and a hint of pepper. On the palate the texture is silky, with a pure, mineral finish.

Grape: 100% Gamay - 50 and 85 years

Organic