Damien Coquelet Chiroubles

About Damien Coquelet Chiroubles

Damien Coquelet Chiroubles is a sensual and delicate Cru Beaujolais. Organic Gamay showing raspberry, earthiness, and fresh spring flowers.

About Damien Coquelet

Damien Coquelet bottled his first vintage in 2007, at just 20 years old! The stepson of Georges Descombes, Damien has worked alongside him since early childhood. Damien produces his wines at his stepfather’s winery in the little town of Vermont, working side by side with both Georges and stepbrother Kevin. More than a decade on, the wines are as exciting as ever, demonstrating stunning purity, energy, and verve. Learning everything from Descombes in the vines and shared cellar has instilled the same values in Damien’s work ethic: organic viticulture, hand harvesting, native yeasts, zero intervention in the cellar, and little if any sulfur at bottling.

Damien currently works nine hectares, 2.5 of which he owns. The breakdown is as follows:

-One hectare of Beaujolais

-Two hectares of Beaujolais-Villages

-Two hectares of Chiroubles

-Four hectares of Morgon Côte-du-Py

The Beaujolais-Villages, Morgon, and Chiroubles are usually bottled the January following the vintage, while an old-vine Morgon and Chiroubles are
barrel-aged and released 18 months after harvest.

About Chiroubles

Chiroubles is an appellation for red wines from Beaujolais. As with all red wines from the region, they are made from the Gamay grape variety. This is one of the smallest of the 10 Beaujolais crus, with around 235 hectares (800 acres) under vine. The wine production zone stretches up the southeast facing slopes of the hills just to the west of Beaujolais.

The vineyards of the appellation lie in the administrative commune of Chiroubles. This is found roughly in the center-west of the northern Beaujolais crus. The commune shares a border in the south with Morgon and one in the north with Fleurie. Its terroir is similar to that of the latter. However, vineyards in Chiroubles rise as high as 450 meters (1500ft) above sea level, making them some of the most elevated in Beaujolais. As a result, there is a more pronounced diurnal temperature shift here than in most of Beaujolais. The warm sunshine of the Saône River valley is followed by much cooler evenings. This cooling of the grapes overnight helps to extend the growing season in Chiroubles. Harvest here often comes later than in the rest of northern Beaujolais. While the cooler mesoclimate here often translates as freshness in Chiroubles wines, a very cold vintage can mean grapes struggle to ripen fully. This gives rise to a lighter, fresher style of red wine, often with floral and red fruit characters. In fact, Chiroubles is often described as being the most “Beaujolais-like” of the 10 cru wines.