Deep tone. So ripe and juicy and - all red and black cherries with hints of fig and liquorice. So crisp, alive and energetic! Now-2012

Product Code: LAG109

This is a typical French family-owned estate, now in the sixth generation of vignerons, with all the benefits that bestows: a sense of tradition, and a priceless inheritance of old vines, which were largely planted either 58 or around 100 years ago. Gerard Lagneau is quiet, with a weather-beaten face and broad smile: he prefers to be out among the vines. The energetic Jeannine runs the place. They really work hard here: the vineyards are grassed and carefully tended; and all their grapes are handpicked, usually later than all their neighbours, to ensure quality and full ripeness. Vinification is all carbonic maceration.

The family have five hectares in Beaujolais-Villages, on schist and granite soils in Quincié-en-Beaujolais, which lies just to the south of Régnié. Their steeply sloping vineyards lie in the line of the Crus: this is generally accepted as one of the best terroirs for Beaujolais-Villages. The 2007 and 2008 vintages of this wine both won Coup de Coeurs, the top accolade in the French Guide Hachette - will this also?

Jancis Robinson's Purple Pages, 15th July 2010:

Sappy raspberry fruit with really mouthfilling but still flirtatious
impact. Delightful for current drinking. Not especially persistent or
intense but no shortage of keen fruit. Silver medal from Paris.

16.5 Drink 2010-2011