RP 94

Aromas of sweet raspberries and blueberries mingle with vine smoke, spices and rose petals in Duperray's 2019 Chenas Jugement Dernier, a medium to full-bodied, polished and sensual wine of exquisite finesse, built around tangy acids and melting tannins, concluding with a saline finish. It's one of the finest bottlings of Chenas that the estate has produced to date.

Is 2019 Fabien Duperray's greatest vintage to date in the Beaujolais? Duperray himself, without actually dismissing 2019, is clearly deeply enamored of his 2020s; but even if 2020 lives up to the billing, can it actually surpass the aromatic range and textural sensuality of 2019? Only time will tell, of course, but I was immensely impressed by these 2019s, which display all the domaine's signature intensity of flavor but which are the lightest in color and most structurally refined out of the gates of any vintage from Jules Desjourneys to date. As readers will remember, since 2015 Duperray has eschewed oak in favor of elevage in glass and steel, and rumor has it that some of those 2015s will at last be reaching the market soon. (""I have the luxury of not having to sell any wine unless I want to, when it's ready."") He's also continued to refine his vineyard work, with manual cultivation of the soils, organic certification and biodynamic methods. Bottling, needless to say, is impeccable, with the best corks money can buy and negligible quantities of dissolved oxygen. But above all, he has an aesthetic vision, informed by immersion in France's greatest wines, that transcends any kind of regional parochialism, allowing him to push the Gamay to the limits of what it can be.