beaujolais bike trip: karim vionnet, morgon

At one point during our informal tasting tour of natural Beaujolais vigneron Karim Vionnet's new facilities in Morgon, the winemaker excused himself for five minutes, because someone working for Pôle Emploi had arrived to discuss grape-picker contracts for the upcoming harvests. Five minutes quickly turned into fifteen, because, as we found out later, the Pôle Emploi employee had been a comely Polish woman who was appreciably interested in Vionnet's status as a bachelor-vigneron. There aren't many of those, she'd said, before joining us in tasting some of his 2010 Beaujolais-Villages...

Personal charms aside, Karim Vionnet is remarkable for representing a continuation of the natural Beaujolais ethos made famous by over the last two decades by Villié-Morgon's pioneering "Gang of Four" : the late Marcel Lapierre, Jean Foillard, Guy Breton, and Jean-Paul Thévenet. Vionnet, a Morgon native and former baker,* trained for several years with Breton, before establishing his own operation in 2006. Since then he's produced a range of wines consistently remarkable for their rugged honesty and grace: a Beaujolais Primeur, a Beaujolais-Villages, a Chiroubles he titles "Vin de Kav," and depending on the vintage, as I only found out that day, a schiste-soil cuvée of Beaujolais-Villages from the commune of Beaujeu that rivals any cru Beaujolais I've tasted recently.

"he gave us the wine to taste, not to criticize"

I've always loved Jonathan Richman but I really could not disagree more with this song. What should we do then, Jojo, just guzzle it down*? What if the host was really hoping we'd have some kind of response? Maybe it was something special he or she had been saving. Furthermore, isn't an unexamined drink, like, not worth drinking?

Also, while on the subject of disagreements with Jonathan Richman, I might just go ahead and say that his concert the night before last at La Boule Noire was way too heavy on his noodley 2000's-era work, and also way too brief.

*Like the insufferable housemate in his 1992 song "You Can't Talk To The Dude."