Guillaume Chanudet Fleurie La Madone 2023

Guillaume Chanudet Fleurie La Madone

Region: Fleurie, Beaujolais, France

Vintage: 2023

Bottle size: 75cl

Grape: Gamey

ABV: 13%

Perfumed nose with a bright and juicy red fruit core, firm yet ripe tannins and a supple texture.

The ‘La Madone’ lieu-dit comprises 38 hectares of vines planted on pink granite. It is widely regarded to be the finest site in Fleurie. Here, Guillaume has a total of 3.5 hectares and uses a specific 1.2-hectare plot within it to create his ‘La Madone’ cuvée. Planted by Guillaume’s grandfather in 1963, this plot is uncertified but farmed using organic principles. It is planted with two rootstocks: one early ripening, one late ripening, something Guillaume was puzzled by when he first began working the vines. Yet he now understands that these rootstocks help create perfect balance in the final wine. He now replants like this throughout his other vineyards, using his grandfather’s logic and the same massal selections.

After being harvested by hand, Guillaume Chanudet’s ‘La Madone’ is 100% whole-bunch fermented using indigenous yeast, before undergoing semi-carbonic maceration in concrete vats lasting 12 days. Post-fermentation, the wine is aged in stainless steel for eight months before bottling. No additional SO2 is used throughout the winemaking process.

Guillaume Chanudet is, first and foremost, a farmer, being the fifth generation of his family to tend vines in the Beaujolais Cru of Fleurie. His grandfather was a pépiniériste, planting and operating a vine nursery from which the family made the massal selection for their vineyards. As a result, there are no clonal plantings across the family’s holdings, an extremely rare occurrence not only in Beaujolais but across France as a whole.