Made from Gamay vines that are now 50 years old and following lutte raisonnée principles, the Domaine Lathuilière Gravallon Fleurie Grand Pre displays sweet red Gamay fruit, but also an impressive finesse and body drawn from its pink granite soils. Pure and fresh, this Fleurie shows juicy cherry fruit combined with delicate but impressive structure.

Paul-Henri Thillardon is, at a very young age, a masterful winemaker. It’s got to be a gift, he has perfect pitch and his wines sing. 

Chenas is not far from Moulin-a-Vent, and for that reason the wines can show much of the same muscle. Paul-Henri brings you this concentration, but knows where the balance point is for elegance. We call it ‘grown-up wine.

In 2008, at the age of 22, he made the important decision to dedicate his work to the cru of Chenas, rather than in neighboring and better-known Moulin-a-Vent which usurps much of the notoriety of Chenas. Tilting at windmills, some say.

He began with 3 hectares (7.2 acres) of family vines in appellation Beaujolais, then the following year entered into a sharecrop deal for 2 hectares (4.8 acres) in Chenas near the Château Boccard on granite soil in the climat Deschamps, a vineyard that had been tended organically for 15 years prior. He was able to use the château’s winemaking facilities, and so, early on, had optimum working conditions.

Then in 2010, he planted an acre of vines on a beautiful south-east facing parcel in Chiroubles, and another parcel of Viognier grapes, a variety that is not authorized in the Beaujolais rules. By early 2011, the domain covered 5.7 hectares (13.7 acres) with his Chenas vines an average of 40 years old.