Louis Latour Moulin-A-Vent Les Michelons

Louis Latour — a house whose vine ownership traces to 1731 and whose Corton Grancey cuverie was France's first purpose-built winery — extends its négociant reach south into Beaujolais with this single-climat bottling from Les Michelons, one of Moulin-à-Vent's most structured lieux-dits. The climat sits on the appellation's characteristic manganese-rich pink granite soils (locally called gore), whose mineral poverty and exceptional drainage force Gamay roots deep, suppressing yields and concentrating phenolic structure in a way that distinguishes Moulin-à-Vent from every other Beaujolais cru.

Vinification follows the Louis Latour red-wine template: 100% hand-harvested, fully destemmed Gamay, fermented in open wooden vats with manual pigeage over approximately 14 days, then aged in French oak (15–35% new) — a regime that adds spinal structure without overwhelming the granite-driven mineral tension. Most critically, the wine undergoes Louis Latour's openly acknowledged flash pasteurisation (approx. 72°C for 2–3 seconds) before bottling, eliminating fining and allowing the wine to fall clear naturally over two to three months.

The special feature here is categorical: flash pasteurisation on a Beaujolais cru is virtually unheard of among peers, and the deliberate use of oak aging on Gamay from a granite site is a direct argument that Les Michelons can sustain the same élevage philosophy applied to Louis Latour's Côte de Nuits reds. The 2021 vintage in Beaujolais delivered freshness and lifted aromatics after a cool, late-harvested season — expect taut red-fruit concentration with the appellation's signature iron-mineral grip.