2020-C Domaine Les Gryphees Chenas, Beaujolais, France (750ml)   

About the Icons
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Pierre and his wife, Cécile have been crafting serious Gamay in the village of Le Bois-d'Oingt at the southern end of Beaujolais, France since 1973. Their son, Guillaume, took over the winemaking in 2007 and is ambitious about expanding their vineyard holdings; currently, they farm 35 acres of primarily 50-year-old vines scattered across the appellation from the Golden Stones Region in the south to Lancié and Romanèche-Thorins in the north.

The vineyards of Domaine Les Gryphées offer a variety of soil types and thus, the estate produces an impressively wide range of terroir-driven wines including two ‘Cru Beaujolais’ (the highest category of classification in the region which distinguishes wines produced from 10 distinct hillside areas), several different Beaujolais AOC (which they also produce to highlight specific terroirs), a Beaujolais Village, a Beaujolais Blanc produced from Chardonnay, a Gamay Rosé and a couple of sparkling wines as well. Gryphées translates to ‘seashell fossils’ which dominate the soils in the ‘Moulin à Vent’ Cru, imparting a mineral-rich character to the Domaine’s most celebrated wine. Yet beyond their Cru bottlings which also includes a Chénas, the Domaine’s basic Beaujolais AOC wines (which include this ‘Le Paquet’ we have selected for club) showcase carefully selected fruit from prime vineyard sites and are certainly not lacking in complexity, structure and finesse.