Wine of the week: a low-brow but delicious Beaujolais

published 5 July 2019

2018 Beaujolais-Lantigni, Alexandre Burgaud, France£14.50, bbr.com

I have a number of guilty pleasures to admit to wines that are supposedly a little low- brow, often rather too affordable, usually early-drinking, but, to me, utterly delicious and unique. Don't laugh at my vinous confessional. Perhaps by standing up and being honest, others might feel free to express their deepest, everyday-drinking wine desires out loud. Asti, Vinho Verde, Beaujolais, Muscadet, Picpoul, Verdicchio, Soave and so on these are wines I adore and, I must be honest, buy and drink by the gallon.

They are wines that my friends also enjoy and if you find tiptop examples they only cost a few quid more than the dreary, run-of-the-mill versions that made these styles rather unfashionable in the first place. With this in mind, I cannot think of a young Beaujolais I have enjoyed more than my featured wine this week.

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Burgaud's Beaujolais-Lantigni is made from his oldest vines, which are mainly planted on the fabled blue granite soils that bring class and depth of flavour to wines like Morgon Cte du Py. There are ten villages in Beaujolais that qualify for Cru status (Fleurie, Morgon, Moulin--Vent, Brouilly et al) and if this wine is anything to go by then Lantigni is in the running for accreditation. I would rather it wasn't recognised so the price stays fair and we can drink celestial wines like this one while cocking a snook at wine snobs everywhere.

Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year (matthewjukes.com)

Matthew Jukes has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books.

Matthew regularly lectures, judges, speaks at wine conferences and runs masterclass tastings for both corporate and private clients all over the world. Matthew is also the creator of his ground-breaking initiative, the One Day Wine School, an indulgent day of tasting and learning first performed in 2006.

He has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006 and has written a weekly column for the Daily Mail’s Weekend Magazine since 1999. His four highly-acclaimed, annual wine reports – the Burgundy En Primeur Report, the Bordeaux En Primeur Report, the Piemonte Report and the 100 Best Australian Wines – are published on his website, www.matthewjukes.com.

Matthew is one of the world’s leading experts on Australian wine and, with Brisbane-based wine writer Tyson Stelzer, runs an annual competition in Australia to find ‘The Great Australian Red’. He was made Honorary Australian of the Year in the UK at the 2012 Australia Day Foundation Gala dinner.

Matthew is a winner of the International Wine and Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year Trophy. His thoughts, recommendations and tastings notes are followed very closely by the wine world at large.