{"id":1296,"date":"2019-06-30T17:52:48","date_gmt":"2019-06-30T17:52:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1296"},"modified":"2019-07-08T20:29:45","modified_gmt":"2019-07-08T20:29:45","slug":"morgon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1296","title":{"rendered":"Morgon"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Beaujolais region of France (actually the southern end of Burgundy) makes wines that generate a lot of differing opinions. Some think they are little more than plonk; others, including us, say that there are many excellent Beaujolais, well worth drinking and some worth cellaring.\u00a0 These points of view arise because there is so much geographic variety in this sector.<\/p>\n

If the wine is simple a Beaujolais, it can come from anywhere in the region and is likely made from less than the best Gamay grapes.\u00a0 A Village\u00a0 is better made, generally from grapes from the southern end of Beaujolais.\u00a0 But the wines known as crus<\/em>\u00a0are the top of the list.\u00a0 They come from ten specific communes or villages in the northern end of the region.\u00a0 They are Brouilly, C\u00f4te de Brouily, R\u00e9gni\u00e9, Chiroubles, Fleurie, Moulin-\u00e0-Vent<\/a>, Chenas, Julienas, St. Amour and Morgon.<\/p>\n

There is a range of style and quality among the crus.\u00a0 Some are thin and acid; some are flowery (they don\u2019t call it Fleurie for nothing), some are deep and rich.\u00a0 And then the last mentioned of these crus, Morgon, has six different sub-sectors, called climats<\/em>, each of which has distinct characteristics.\u00a0 The most powerful and best known is the C\u00f4te de Py, in the middle of Morgon.<\/p>\n

So wine tasting Beaujolais is a much more complicated matter than just driving into a section of France and visiting wineries.\u00a0 So let\u2019s just focus on Morgon.\u00a0 Because it\u2019s our favorite, that\u2019s why.<\/p>\n

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The Cooperative in Villi\u00e9-Morgon<\/em><\/p>\n

Assuming you\u2019re coming from the south, from Lyon, drive north on the A6, which is a relatively wide road.\u00a0 It\u2019s about a 45-minute drive.\u00a0 Turn left when you see signs for Villi\u00e9-Morgon, the only town in the region.\u00a0 It\u2019s a nice enough little town but not one for which you ought to plan a special trip.\u00a0 But it does contain the Cooperative of Morgon and that is worth a stop.\u00a0 There you\u2019ll learn more detail about everything contained in the first three paragraphs of this article.\u00a0 You\u2019ll see exhibits explaining the history and culture of Morgon and can sample tastings from the various climats<\/em>.\u00a0 It is fair to say that, as with most cooperatives in France, you won\u2019t be offered the best wines of the AOC, but you will get an introduction to the differences within it.<\/p>\n

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Because it is centrally located, Villi\u00e9-Morgon touches on four of the six climats<\/em>.\u00a0 So staying within hailing distance of the town you can visit quite a few high-quality wineries without travelling very far.\u00a0 But understand that this is not California, where the wineries have elaborate tasting rooms.\u00a0 You well may find that even some of the better labels come from small vineyards and you will have a chance to taste in the front room of a farmhouse.\u00a0 Also, if you are there in the vendanges<\/em>, harvest-time, they may be too busy to offer you a taste at all.<\/p>\n

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Harvesting the Gamay grapes that will soon be Beaujolais.\u00a0 Note how low they keep the vines in this region.<\/em><\/p>\n

Villi\u00e9-Morgon has a few caf\u00e9s and bistros, but nothing of any note.\u00a0 If you\u2019d like to have a truly memorable French country meal, we recommend you drive through the C\u00f4te de Py following the main (only) road until you come across signs for Le Restaurant Morgon (http:\/\/www.restaurantlemorgon.fr\/<\/a>) .\u00a0 It won\u2019t set you back much; you can avail yourself of their wonderful cellar full of Beaujolais of a quality you may never have known of; and the food is fabulous.\u00a0 Leave room and some wine for the cheese course.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Beaujolais region of France (actually the southern end of Burgundy) makes wines that generate a lot of differing opinions. Some think they are little more than plonk; others, including us, say that there are many excellent Beaujolais, well worth drinking and some worth cellaring.\u00a0 These points of view arise because there is so much … Continue reading Morgon<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1296"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1296"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1316,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1296\/revisions\/1316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}