Mee came to Beaujolais and started her domaine in the 2013 vintage. Imagine if someone came out of nowhere to create a new domaine in Gevrey-Chambertin and managed to start with parcels of Clos St.... Read More

Mee came to Beaujolais and started her domaine in the 2013 vintage. Imagine if someone came out of nowhere to create a new domaine in Gevrey-Chambertin and managed to start with parcels of Clos St. Jacques, Chambertin, and Clos de Bèze. Impossible! But that’s exactly what Mee did in Morgon, acquiring parcels in the three great crus of the village: Corcelette, Côte du Py, and Grand Cras.

The reason she could do this, of course, is money. Top Beaujolais costs about €30,000 per hectare. As Jon Bonné has pointed out in Punch magazine, even lowly Savigny-lès-Beaune in Burgundy commands a price around ten times that. (We’re not aware of any recent trades but a hectare of Chambertin would no doubt cost many millions of euros.)

Of course, we don’t love Mee just because she managed to acquire some prime parcels; her winemaking is stellar and takes full advantage of her terroir. Beaujolais producers usually find themselves making a choice. Do they use carbonic maceration and low-extraction techniques to produce easy-drinking quaffers? Or do they use a more Burgundian style of wine-making to produce structured wines that can be aged?

Mee Godard opts for a middle approach. She does some carbonic fermentation, some traditional fermentation, and then blends them together. Her wines are definitely delicious on release, and we are pretty sure they’ll age well, too—her oldest wines are 2013s, so this hasn’t really been put to the test yet.