Wine of the week: an impressive and charming thoroughbred

By Matthew Jukes

published 8 November 2019

in Features

2018 Fleurie, La Roilette, Domaine Coudert, Beaujolais, France

£19.95, Domaine Direct, 020-7404 9933, email

sales@domainedirect.co.uk

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Looking over my past tips for MoneyWeek, I noticed that this very wine, albeit the 2010 vintage, appeared on this page back in 2011. La Roilette is, without a doubt, one of my favourite red wines in the world. It ticks an amazing number of boxes: its epic flavour, year in year out; its stunning value for money; its vast food and wine-matching skills; and its popularity on the very best restaurant wine lists, giving all-comers a genuine place of refuge (often between the £40 and £50 mark, which is virtually impossible to find these days). It is also one of the truly great Beaujolais.

Clos de la Roilette, while situated in Fleurie, sits smack on the border of the Moulin--Vent appellation. It is named after a racehorse, whose rather sketchy, donkey-like image is depicted on the label. The estate is planted with vines aged between 30 and 80 years and the wine is a thoroughbred that manages to summon up both the floral beauty of a blushing Fleurie while possessing the deeper, throbbing, horsepower of a Moulin--Vent. This gives Roilette the rare attribute of drinking exceedingly well in its youth, but also being able to hold on for an age, which is useful if odd bottles get mislaid in your cellar.

I have stumbled across ten-year-old versions of this charming nag and they always taste incredible. Grab a case of this pedigree specimen and you will be amazed at the breeding on display.

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.