Ep. 946 Map 7 Beaujolais | Jumbo Shrimp Maps

Welcome to the Italian wine podcast. This episode is brought to you by Vinitally International Academy, announcing the twenty fourth of our Italian wine Ambassador courses to be held in London, Austria, and Hong Kong from the twenty seventh to the twenty ninth of July. Are you up for the challenge of this demanding course? Do you want to be the next Italian wine Ambassador? Learn more and apply now at viniti international dot com. Welcome to jumbo shrimp wine study maps. We have specially created this free content for all our listeners who are studying for wine exams. This has been a journey of development since Stevie Kim discovered Rosie Baker's hand drawn maps on Instagram through two years of work by our in house editorial and graphics team, and now the maps are available to purchase in beta form while they undergo the final briefing and editing by our expert advisory board. It's a three layered project because we know everyone learns differently. We now offer the complete box set of thirty nine maps, this series of podcasts with the maps narrated by our crack team of wine educators. And finally, the study guide book, which will be published later this year. Our map project is in no way a substitute for the material set out by other educational organizations. But we hope all the wine students out there will find our map project, a new, exciting, and useful tool for learning. For more information and to buy the maps, please visit our website at mama jumbo shrimp dot com. Baujolais is an area that sits directly under the central burgundy area. So after you hit the macrame, travel a little bit further south, and you hit beaujolais. However, the regional appelastion here is beaujolais appelastion Controlet. After this, we have a beaujolais village appelastion. So these are wines that can be labeled Baujolais village with grapes taken from any of a number of named villages in the area. The level above this, we have what's called the Bojali crew. So these are a specific set of villages that have been given crew status. And likely here what you will see is just the village name on the label. You will be expected to know that it comes from beaujolais. For example, you might see morgon or flurry. There are both black and white grape varieties grown throughout beaujolais. The whites continue this theme from burgundy of chardonnay, with the addition of Aligote, a high acidity relatively simple white grape, But our focus really is on the black varieties here. There is a little bit of pinot noir, but the real focus is gamay. It's a purple grape with high acidity and gives lots of fruit floral aromas. Really focused in this red fruit of strawberry, raspberry, cherry, with some violets or roses. One of the reasons that gamma ray really thrives down here in this beaujolais area It's because the climate is similar to the macrame. It is moderate. It's a moderate continental climate. Therefore, it has the warmth to ripen this black, great variety that likes a moderate to warm climate. One of the key things about beaujolais is its soil. So there is a split in the soil in beaujolais with the northern area being granite and schist, particularly in the upper slopes, whereas the lower slopes are kind of stone still in clay. Because of this, particularly on the upper slopes, you have these very, very dense soils that are very infertile and really perfect for getting the best out of gamay. It's really at its best when it's struggling. And this is where we find the concentration of the beaujolais crew. In the southern area, you have much more alluvial planes. It's sandstone, sometimes clay Lionstone, and Here, because of this, it's much easier to go, gamay, doesn't struggle. Therefore, we tend to have the concentration here of the beaujolais, Apolacron Controlet wines, so much more simple and fruity wines. So having identified this split in soils and what this means for the grapes, so really being able to thrive in the alluvial areas of this southern region with the sandstone, clear limestone, whereas it really struggles in the north on the granite schist soils, you can also begin to start thinking about winemaking here because there is a real focus on what's called whole bunch fermentation winemaking techniques. And this is one of the key things that you need to focus on for your exam, how these techniques impact the style of wine and where you're going to find them. So let's take a little look at these whole bunch fermentation techniques. These are wind making techniques that rely on full, semi, or partial carbonic maceration. This is a process of fermentation that relies on to some degree depending on whether you're using. Fully carbonic, semi or partial carbonic on the use of whole bunches and intracellular fermentation. So it happening inside the great variety to give particular flavors and aromas and a style of wine. It's really about a focus on fruit flavors as because of the process, it doesn't give you a lot of tannin. So you have deeply colored wines, very, very fruity, but with very little tannin. Because it relies on some degree of whole bunches, then you need fully ripe stems. And that's one of the reasons why fully carbonic maceration is focused on in this southern area, the alluvial plains, where you have these beaujolaisian wines, because it's really easy to get very, very ripe stems here. So whole bunch picking ripe stems, going straight into fully carbonic maceration. Are you enjoying this podcast? There's so much more high quality wine content available for mama jumbo shrimp Check out our new wine study maps, our books on Italian wine, including Italian wine unplugged, the jumbo shrimp guide to Italian wine, Sanjay Lambrusco, and other stories, and much much more. On our website, mama jumbo shrimp dot com. Now back to the show. So what happens? You take your hand harvested fully ripe bunches, and you place them in a tank with carbon dioxide. So c o two, and you seal the tank. And what happens is then you have this intracellular fermentation, so inside the grate swells and this produces flavors and aromas of banana and quiche and candy and these very, very fruity wines with very little denim. This is what is used for the wines of beaujolais nouveau. So these very quickly produced wines that are ready for release in the third week of November. They've been made very fast, fresh fruity quite often used for chilling. Light bodied, low tannin wines with lots of red berries, and this Kirsch banana character from fully carbonic maceration. Grapes for this will almost always come from this southern area where it's really easy to grow and produce in high yields. Next, we have semi carbonic maceration. So this is similar in the sense that you need whole bunches, but you do not add c o two. So you put the bunches into the tank. And what happens is the weight of the whole bunches on top of each other crushes the grapes at the bottom and they begin to start fermenting. This produces c o two naturally, which rises to the top of the tank, creates a barrier and therefore seals the grapes and then carbonic maceration begins to happen with the grapes at the top of the tank. This means that you get natural flavors of fermentation, but also the additional flavors of carbonic maceration. So you get a little bit more tannin and a little bit more integration between the carbonic maceration flavors of Keish and banana with natural flavors from fermentation that we're used to enhancing this red berry fruited character. This might be used in some of the beaujolais Village wines just to add a little bit more depth and complexity and these lovely soft tannins. The final technique that we talk about with these whole bunch fermentation methods is not connected to carbonic maceration, but it's just using a mixture of whole bunches with destemned grapes. And this gives a very silky smooth texture to the wines. And this is something that might even be used in the Bojlee crew to really enhance the velvety Tannic approach and a little bit more structure because you've got the stems in there. So speaking of these beaujolais crew, these specific villages that can use just the name on the label. Fortunately, For your WSTT level three exam, you don't need to know all of them. However, there are four key villages in this northern area on these granite soils that give more structured concentrated wines that might have some suitability for aging. And you need to know four of them because there are the wines of Bruy and Flurry, which give lighter more perfumed wines, really focusing on that violet or rose character that you get. Not really suitable for long aging. In comparison to the wines of Morgant and moulin Avon, which give the most structured wines of all of the beaujolais cru. Lots of fruit concentration, lots of tannic structure, and these wines often do see aging and quite a bit of oak used to add these lovely cinnamon spices. So to recap some of your key factors to be considering in beaujolais, These differences in styles between beaujolais nouveau wines, which are typically the beaujolais appelation Controlet wines. Although not always, they will likely have nouveau on the label. So these fresh, fruity, easy drinking wines, low tannin light bodied with these additional flavors of carbonic maceration compared to the grue wines, so much more concentrated potentially suitable for aging. And again, connecting both the area, the winemaking technique, and the soils here. Join me next time when we'll be continuing our journey south through this central area of France and looking at the Northern Rome. Thanks for listening to this episode of Italian wine podcast brought to you by Vineetli Academy, home of the gold standard of Italian wine education. Do you want to be the next ambassador? Apply online at benetri international dot com for courses in London, Austria, and Hong Kong, the twenty seventh to the twenty ninth of July. Remember to subscribe and like Italian wine podcast, and catch us on Samflat, Spotify, and wherever you get your pods. You can also find our entire back catalog of episodes at italian wine podcast dot com. Hi, guys. I'm Joy Lamingston, and I am the producer of the Italian wine podcast. Thank you for listening. We are the only wine podcast that has been doing a daily show since the pandemic began. This is a labor of love and we are committed to bringing you free content every day. Of course, this takes time and effort not to mention the cost of equipment, production, and editing. We would be grateful for your donations, suggestions, requests, and ideas. For more information on how to get in touch, go to Italian wine podcast dot com.