Domaine de la Pirolette - Le Carjot 2017

Bettane & Desseauve

About the domain :

Grégory Barbet, son of former House Director Jean Loron, produced his first vintage in 2013. With 15 hectares perfectly situated around the estate, Grégory quickly understood the need to deal with the heterogeneity of a cru better known for its evocative name than for its hitherto confidential parcels. While his village cuvée is positioned in a reliable, structured style, his plot-based cuvées, Poulette and Carjot, are in the making. Indeed, while the use of wood has improved, it's the blending with concrete eggs that has really brought a more subtle balance to the woodiness, which is finding its rightness in 2018. In an appellation where references were lacking, here is a young estate to watch, as much for the rising quality of its wines as for the contagious passion that inhabits this young winemaker.

Robert Parker - Wine Advocate

About the wine:

Domain de la Pirolette's 2017 Saint-Amour Le Carjot reveals a deep bouquet of ripe cherries, plums and dark chocolate reasonably and subtly framed by a touch of wood. On the palate, the wine is medium to full-bodied, rich and mellow, with a particularly vanilla finish. With the use of older, more neutral barrels, this would be a superb cuvée, and readers with a higher tolerance for woody Beaujolais will want to add a few points to my score.

RVF - La Revue du Vin de France / Guide des Meilleurs Vins de France

About the wine:

The Carjot is slightly marked by a note of noble wood, quickly giving way to aromas of intense black fruit, cold coffee and chocolate sponge cake. The palate is very well constructed, with round fruit and a tannic framework that structures the whole.

About the domain :

A former cooperage sales executive, Virginie Barbet bought this estate in 2013 with her husband Grégory and a few investor friends. Depending on the cuvée, the grapes are either destemmed or pressed whole. But always with a "chapeau grillé" accompanied by pumping-over and délestage for gentle extraction. They then mature in French oak barrels and concrete eggs their various parcel-based cuvées, which are among the most distinctive terroirs of the cru. Today, they are one of the few domains to restore Saint-Amour's cru status.

Wine Enthusiast

About the wine:

This single parcel wine was partially aged in wood for 16 months. This has added spice to the fragrant fruit and rich tannins, giving the wine plenty of cellaring potential. The finish shows the wine's youth, with licorice notes that soften as it matures. Drink from 2021.

Gilbert & Gaillard

James Suckling

Beaujolais Aujourd'hui