Super B Red 2021

Super B Rouge 2021

Patrick Bouju

Super as in super-good, B as in Beaujolais. Here is a delicious red wine from Patrick Bouju, who, for the occasion, is moving away from the Auvergne Gamay to Gamays planted further east. Super B is indeed a beautiful blend of Beaujolais Gamays and Brouilly Gamays (lieu-dit Pisse-Vieille) grown on granite and bluestone soils. Its aromas of red berries and hazelnut bring a sensation of freshness to the palate and make it a very pleasant thirst-quenching wine. Super B has a certain ability to descend at full speed; it's a beautiful gurgle. The harvest is macerated for two weeks in whole bunches, vinified with indigenous yeasts, and the aging is done partly in vats, the rest in sandstone amphorae. No clarification, no filtration, no added sulfites. This wine can age for around seven years.

To find out more
Near Billom, the Limagne clermontoise rises towards the east to form a hilly area with a mild climate, dominated by volcanic hills. This is the Auvergne Tuscany, so named because of its resemblance to the Italian province. This land of mixed subsistence farming was once covered in vines and was the preferred domain of Gamay d'Auvergne, a robust ancient strain, the origin of dense, deep and fruity wines. This is where Patrick Bouju cultivates and vinifies, on these high-quality volcanic soils and mainly on old vines. The soils vary between basalt, limestone, clay-limestone, and pozzolan. Patrick collects and cares for the best terroirs of Puy-de-Dôme, often abandoned, and gives them new life. He also preserves the indigenous grape varieties, of which he cultivates a good fifty, and simultaneously works as a wine merchant using purchased organic grapes. The current renaissance of the Auvergne vineyard (which was once the third largest in France) owes much to Patrick. The fact that he enjoys lending a helping hand to his winegrowing friends in France and elsewhere only confirms his image as a role model, a leader. His partnerships are famous: with Action Bronson for the series A la Natural, with Jason Ligas in Greece for Sous le Végétal… Patrick practices long macerations, and the wines rest for up to six months after bottling. Very sensitive to sulfites in wines, Patrick found that his wines did very well without them. He also found that if the grapes are healthy and concentrated, balance occurs naturally, regardless of the successive phases a vintage goes through. His noble, chiseled, distinguished, never bland wines are immediately recognizable in the glass. They are straight, clean, precise, often marked by floral notes and a spicy minerality. They also constitute a formidable anthology of the terroirs and ancient vines of Lower Auvergne and its volcanic soils.