Christophe Pacalet (Beaujolais)

Still Life in the chai - Empty glass on the press Cercié (Beaujolais)
Just a few kilometers south of Villié Morgon, there's a small village named Cercié, this is where Christophe Pacalet based his winery. Unlike most of his peers, he doesn't own vineyards but he purchases the grapes from selected terroirs. In that sense he shares another trait with his same-name cousin, Philippe Pacalet, who makes wine further north in Burgundy without owning land there.
Christophe set up his winery, we'll call it a négoce (but he vinifies all his wines himself), in 1999. Purchasing grapes adds a bit of uncertainty on the whole enterprise but on the whole, his contracts are pretty stable, the Côtes de Brouilly comes from the same vineyards since 2001, the Chiroubles since 1999, the Moulin à Vent is made from the same 3 plots since 2000. For the white Beaujolais, there's no history yet, as this is the first year he makes one. Julienas is very regular too, he buys from the same place since 2004, there's only Chenas he says, which is oddly changing almost every year in spite of a slugging wholesale market for these grapes. For some reasons, the growers aren't selling much grapes, so he has now and then to find new growers for this terroir.
Christophe Pacalet makes wines today from a total surface of about 8 hectares of vineyards, split Julienas (0,2 hectare), Chiroubles (1 hectare), Moulin à Vent (1 hectare), Chenas (0,6 hectare), plus larger surface equivalences for the white, the Beaulolais Nouveau and the Beaujolais Villages, which he counts in purchased-grapes weight more than in vineyard surface.

Christophe Pacalet in front of his press For his first white Beaujolais, he got the Chardonnay from vineyards between Arnas and Saint Georges de Reneins. He had been thinking for quite some time that he'd like to make white Beaujolais too. His uncle Marcel Lapierre who wasn't making whites though, told him that he should try to make one, adding that there was not much white Beaujolais vinified without SO2 and on their wild yeasts to choose from. There was Jean Paul Brun who makes whites like that but otherwise it's not very common in the Appellation. So he ended up materializing his project and he bought 15 hectoliters of pressed juice. Speaking of Marcel Lapierre, he took part to the setting up of this Négoce in 1999, they knew each other very well and discussed freely on all subjects and that's how he suggested to Christophe this white Beaujolais idea. This visit, which was planned a couple months before at least, took place on october 21st if I remember, and it was just a few days after the funeral of Marcel Lapierre, the disappearance of whom left a void for many winemakers who shared his adventure around here . There was still a palpable emotion on the subject. Cercié, the village - the Côtes-de-Brouilly slopes in the far To rewind back before he started his négoce, Christophe Pacalet studied biology and chemistry at the university for a couple of years, then he worked in restaurants for 9 years, beginning in Lyons, then in the Caribbean (Saint Martin) every season during 5 or 6 months, alternating with backpack travels and helping his uncle Marcel Lapierre in the winery in Villié Morgon. Then in 1999, as he wanted to settle down his life in the region, he chose to make wine independently with purchased grapes, it seemed a good option and he had the backing of Marcel Lapierre. He hadn't been to the wine school but he had learnt on the job (and with a mentor who was better than any wine school...). That's how the winery began, things were fine-tuned along the years, he bought this chai and looked out for used wooden fermenters and tools. The wooden tronconic fermenters Asked about what are the challenges of purchasing grapes as opposed to grow on owned land, he says that one of the most important things is to do the harvest with one's own team, because this stage decides for much of the quality of the future wine. Another important thing is to choose old vines in the first place, because even if they may have been conventionally farmed for some time around the 1980s', they had all been plowed and correctly manage in their early years, so that's easier to bring them back to an organic farming with the right ground work. All his wines are made from old vines for that reason.
He always used a courtier, an agent, to find the vineyards when he was looking for some, and it worked well.
We walk into the chai where the wooden tronconic vats and the press sit. These open-top fermenters allow him to vinify his different terroirs individually. I note that here also, the chai is well aerated, with a non-insulated roof allowing the air to come and go. Open-top wooden vats About the vinification, he says that for his Chenas, Moulin à Vent and Juliénas, he doesn't cool down the harvest like Marcel Lapierre did. He noticed that if it worked well with the Morgon, the Chiroubles and Côtes de Brouilly, it was easy to begin to ferment these 3 former Appellations when the temperature of the grapes had been cooled during a night. This is the same variety, Gamay, but the yeasts don't seem to work on the same temperature range in these terroirs. He notes by the way that in the past, these Chenas, Moulin à Vent and Fleurie had some punching down on the cap to accelerate the fermentation. The vignerons of the past knew empirically this differential behaviour of the yeasts and their punching helped raise substantially the temperature of the vat load. The vertical press in action About this slower fermentation start of these terroirs, he tends to do like the old tradition, for example when his Moulin à Vent grapes are a bit cold because of the weather like this year, he stomped the grapes and chaptalized very lightly (on homeopatic doses, not to raise the alcohol level but to stimulate the fermentation process) so that the oxygen input brought by the stomping helps raise the temperature naturally, starting off the fermentation. Waiting too much for the start of the fermentation under cold temperature often results in noses of Ethyl Acetate and solvents, glue which are undesirable in wines.
Speaking of the grapes, they're harvested by hios own team of pickers as said above, and the sorting is made while picking, he considers that the sorting tables don't work well on Gamay, the best sorting is on the spot. If the owner of the vineyard wants to do something with the grapes that they didn't select, the pickers harvest with two buckets, one for the good grapes, the other for the unfit ones when the vineyard owner wants to use them. But most of the times, they just leave these bad grapes on the ground. Chiroubles in the making Christophe Pacalet's harvest take place in a time window of 10 days roughly, the pickers are always the same guys, they live in Belleville sur Saone and they've been doing this type of harvest job since they're kids, so they are quite expert in the trade, they fill the boxes with well-sorted grapes and pile them at the end of the row, another team being in charge of transporting the boxes to the winery. Usually, on very hot years like 2000, 2005 or 2009, they begin with Côtes de Brouilly because the rocky or sandy soil make it more difficult for these terroirs, and on rainy years like in 2010 they do the opposite, they begin with Moulin à Vent & Chenas with terroirs where too much water may make problems. Tasting the juice flowing from the press When the boxes of grapes arrive at the chai, they're emptied into one of these tronconic fermenters and covered with CO2 and then they just keep an eye on the process, checking the temperature at the top and in the lower layer, making analysis, measuring the density and tasting the juice that forms in the bottom. This carbonic-maceration stage will last between 10 days and a month, depending of the vintage, this year it lasted 20 days in general. The fermentation will start in the juice in the bottom and while the Côtes de Brouilly and the Chiroubles will ferment even at 12°C, the Moulin à Vent or the Chenas will need 15°C or 16°C to start fermenting.
After then, they take the clustered grapes out of the open vats with forks and fill the press, blending in general the press juice with the free-run (jus de goutte) juice into the same tronconic wooded vat. The press stage will last about 10 hours in general. Foudres and fiber vat With the surge of sugar levels brought by the press juice, the blended juice will ferment back. This year, there has been a few cold days which slowed the process, but it just delayed it. He checked the vats recently and the sugar levels are quietly going down and the fermentation will finish in the winter. They usually put the wine into the casks or into the foudres when there's about 15 grams of sugar left in the juice, so that it finishes its fermentation in its élevage barrel.
He'll make his first bottlings in spring, for Easter, usually the Chiroubles for example. Also the Côtes de Brouilly, the last being the Moulin à Vent, the Chenas. These last wines were bottled last october for the 2009 vintage, but there's no fixed date, every year is slightly different, the previous years it was more like mid-july or august. In 2009, the sugar had taken more time to be transformed into alcohol (he of course uses indigenous yeasts), and he had thus to wait longer and reschedule the bottlings. The underground cask cellar Before bottling, he blends the casks into a fiber vat, adds SO2 or not (it depends of his customers and of the terroir) and proceeds to the bottling. Speaking of SO2, he never adds some when the grapes arrive in the chai. He may occasionally add some during the élevage if there's some hints of volatile acidity showing up, but that's case by case, only if deemed necessary. They otherwise check the wine every month, but when the cold winter settles in, nothing moves, the wine goes to sleep, and they just let it that way till spring. Then, with the temperatures of the atmosphere going up, the wines awake and he reinstates the regular checking. Here are a few wines that we tasted during this visit :
__ Christophe Pacalet Chiroubles 2009. Bottled last june. Lots of character, fruit. 1st wine that we taste that day, not easy. A bit of reduction at the beginning. No SO2 here, Christophe says. Most of his Chiroubles wines, which make usually only 11,5° in alcohol, are exported to Japan. The 2009 one is exceptionally high, with 13°.
__ Christophe Pacalet Fleurie 2009. Bottled last april. Seems much more opened, but that's the second wine and it's always easier. This wine is feminine and elegant. Christophe Pacalet says that it's like the Chambolle Musigny in Burgundy, same easy pleasure. Here there was some SO2 added just before the bottling, with between 0 and 3,5 grams total and free. The level allowed by the Appellation rules is 18 grams. He didn't add any SO2 in the Chiroubles that we tasted before, because it's a wine that is supposed to be drunk earlier. This fleurie makes 13° in 2009, which is rare also. Very tasty wine indeed. The cask cellar __ Christophe Pacalet Côtes de Brouilly 2009. The terroir is a very old volcano. Christophe says that the Gamay gives its very best on poor soils, including on volcanic soils. Here the soil has lots of Metadiurite, a basaltic type of stone, very hard and blue mineral, very different from what you find in other terroirs. And yields must not go over 50 hectoliter/hectare. He adds that from his point of view, Côtes de Brouilly is one of the most beautiful terroirs of Beaujolais. Its name comes from Brulius, a lieutenant of the Roman Army who was given this arid hill as payment for his service and planted it. While Brouilly is the biggest Appellation of Beaujolais, Côtes de Brouilly gathers the best terroirs of the area. The wine has a very beautiful structure and tannins, thin and almost silky. Christophe says that this wine is always easy to vinify.
__ Christophe Pacalet Moulin à Vent 2009. From vineyard with lots of granite and manganese in its soil. Fruity nose, plum. Complexity. Pleasant mouth, with elegance. Good acidity. 14°. Length. This wine has time on its side, Christophe says that in 20 years from now, it will still have things to say.
__We go taste wines in the casks : the Moulin à Vent 2010, then the Fleurie 2010 and the Juliénas 2010. The Fleurie has been in casks for a week, it has not yet made its malolactic fermentation, that's the first time it happens.
__ Christophe Pacalet Chenas 2009. This terroir easily reaches high alcohol levels because of its clay soil. 14,5° in 2009, first time he reaches such a level, usually it makes 13°. Very open, very tasty wine. A little known story about Chénas (according to this article in French) is that some of the Chénas production disappears regularly from the statistics because some Burgundy wineries buy it to blend it with their Bourgogne wines and thus enhance their Pinot Noir alcohol level.
__ Christophe Pacalet Beaujolais Villages 2009. Delicious simple wine. He bought the juice from a vigneron in Lantignié.
__ Christophe Pacalet Chiroubles 2008. That's how Chiroubles really tastes, Christophe says. Delicate aromatic nose, some smoky taste. Right time to drink it, he says. 12°. The smoky side comes from the bacteria that start to attack, as there's no SO2 at all in this wine. Not a problem for me anyway.
__ Christophe Pacalet Côtes de Brouilly 2008. Difficult vintage, he says, they had to do lots of sorting and dumping in the vineyard on harvest day. Nice mouth and nice length, proves that difficult vintage doesn't mean second-rate wine. Nice color and transparency, 12°.
__ Christophe Pacalet Beaujolais Villages 2010. Nice peppery nose. No SO2 at all in this wine, made from young vines. 800 cases will be shipped november 2nd to Japan to be ready for the 3rd thursday of november.
__ Christophe Pacalet Moulin à Vent 2008. That's a very nice wine to drink. A fountain of Chiroubles
Chistophe Pacalet and his wife have two young daughters.


Christophe Pacalet sells two-thirds of his wines outside of France, first in Japan (Oeno-Connexion), then to the United States (Winebow), to Holland (Vleck), Belgium, Canade (Rezin in Quebec - Ontario, Michel Rethors and Racine Wine Imports in British Columbia), Denmark, Italy, the latter being in small volumes, in Spain too through Lavinia. Then, he sells to cavistes (Lavinia, Caves Augé...) and restaurants (Cave de l'Os à Moelle, Chez Michel, le Comptoir, Chez l'Ami Jean...). More and more people come buy wine also at the winery.

Christophe PacaletSARL Les MarcellinsLes Bruyères - Cercié 69220www.christophepacalet.com+ 33 4 74 66 42 83

Comments

[Rick Rainey]

Just a quick thank you from the U.S. I am one of the French wine "guys" at Winebow who import Christophe Pacalet, matter of fact I have a bottle ready for tonight's beef stew. I email not so much to say thank you for this article but to say thank you for the web-site as it is my favorite daily read. You do a brilliant job and should be commended for your commitment for telling all of the wonderful stories that you do. I often share your stories with our sales team (over 100 strong) because I find the site reminds me why I got into this business and why I treasure the memories of my yearly buying trips to France. Unfortunately I have had to cut back on the trips but I use your sight as a alternative and it does a great job as a replacement to the joy of banging around the countryside visiting the likes of Humbrecht, Raveneau, Tempier, Lapierre - just to name a few of my favorites.

Thanks again and keep up the good work. If you make it to the US and are interested in cool climate riesling and pinot then me please look me up as I live in the Finger Lakes of NY and would gladly show you around this interesting and emerging area.

[Peter Vars]

Here here. Wonderful stuff. I am working harvest in Oregon's Willamette Valley and I have been happy to share this site with local winemakers here regarding the harvest in Beaujolais, discuss your observations and how the vintages are similar between the two different areas. Always a pleasure to read... Thanks!

[Bertrand]

Thanks, Rick, for dropping here and write those comments, i'll keep this Finger Lakes invite in the back of my mind in case I visit the area, I heard from this region but never tasted anything from there...

Thank you to Peter too, speaking of Willamete Valley,I remember visiting Russ Raney of Evesham Wood, but alas, he sold and left the area...too bad...

Cheers, Bertrand