Domaine Thibault Liger-Belair Moulin-a-vent “les Perelles”

Thibault Liger-Belair — heir to a négociant lineage stretching to 1720 and a family that once held La Tâche before selling to DRC in 1929 — turned vigneron in 2001 and extended his reach south into Beaujolais, acquiring roughly 8 hectares in Moulin-à-Vent, a deliberate transgression for a domaine rooted in the Côte de Nuits. Les Perrelles sits on the decomposed granite soils that define Moulin-à-Vent's upper slopes, where manganese-rich bedrock and poor water retention force Gamay roots deep, producing small-berried fruit with structural density rarely associated with the appellation. Viticulture is fully biodynamic, with soils plowed by horse; grapes are hand-harvested with triple sorting — at vine, before and after the destemmer — before native yeast fermentation in open-top vessels. Aging follows Thibault's Burgundian template: oak barrels with a 3-year wood-drying period and light charring (5–7 minutes) to integrate tannin without masking granite-driven minerality. The wine is bottled unfined and unfiltered. What is unusual here: Thibault applies Grand Cru Burgundy cellar discipline — triple sort, indigenous yeast, no fining — to a Beaujolais cru that most négociants treat as volume production. The 2015 vintage delivered mineral-driven character, fine-grained tannins, and a persistently structured finish per producer notes.