Marcel Lapierre, Morgon
In Villié-Morgon, in the north of Beaujolais, the vines grow in granite that has crumbled into coarse, sandy gravel. Locals call it roches pourries, rotten rock. Up on the hill of Côte du Py, the stone turns into a darker blue schist. Marcel Lapierre spent his whole life on this ground. The wines he made here helped start what we now call natural wine, and a bottle of Marcel Lapierre Morgon is still one of the clearest ways to understand it. We bring the Lapierre family's wines to Vietnam, and this is their story.
A small family estate
Marcel was born in Villié-Morgon in 1950. After wine school, in 1973, he started working beside his father on an estate of around seven hectares. In those years most of Beaujolais farmed and made wine the modern way, with herbicides and chemical fertiliser in the vineyard and cultured yeast and sulfur in the cellar.
1981, and a chemist named Jules Chauvet
In 1981 Marcel met Jules Chauvet, a chemist and wine merchant from the region who had spent decades studying fermentation. Chauvet argued that healthy grapes, fermented on their own yeasts, did not need the usual additions. Marcel took that seriously. He stopped using herbicides and chemical fertiliser, let the grapes ferment on the yeasts already on their skins, gave up filtering, and cut sulfur down to very little or none at all.
His neighbours Jean Foillard, Guy Breton and Jean-Paul Thévenet went down the same road. Their American importer, Kermit Lynch, called the four of them the Gang of Four, and the name has stayed with them ever since.
How a Lapierre Morgon gets made
The grapes are picked by hand and go into the vat as whole bunches. Fermentation starts inside the uncrushed berries, a method called semi-carbonic maceration, and runs on native yeasts for ten days to three weeks. The wine then rests on its fine lees for about nine months in old oak, never new, and is bottled without filtering. The vines behind the Morgon average around 60 years old.
In the glass, the Morgon smells of cherry, licorice and violets. It is silky and juicy, with an earthy note underneath. You can open it tonight or keep it for a few years.
Mathieu and Camille
Marcel died in October 2010, at 60. His son Mathieu had been working full-time in the cellar since 2005. Today Mathieu and his sister Camille run the domaine together, with Camille looking after the vineyards. They have kept their father's methods and added wines of their own, including the Cuvée Camille from a parcel on Côte du Py.
Beaujolais is more than Beaujolais Nouveau
On the third Thursday of November, Beaujolais Nouveau arrives in Vietnam with plenty of parties around it. Nouveau is young wine, made to be drunk within weeks. Morgon is something else. It is one of the ten Beaujolais crus, the villages with the region's best granite slopes, and its wines are built to last. It is the same Gamay grape, given more time and better ground.
What to drink it with
Gamay from granite is one of the easiest reds to pair with food. It is light enough to serve slightly cool, around 14–15°C, which helps in Da Nang or Saigon heat, and its acidity cuts through fat and smoke. Try it with bún chả, nem nướng or a plate of charcuterie. Raisins Gaulois, the family's young-vine Gamay, is the easy weeknight bottle. The Morgon is for a dinner where you want to talk about the wine.
Find Lapierre in Vietnam
We import the Lapierre wines directly and deliver anywhere in Vietnam within 24 hours, to restaurants, hotels and homes. Send us a message and we'll set a bottle aside for you.
Comments