Daniel Bouland Cote de Brouilly "Cuvee Melanie" 2022

Morgon, Beaujolais, France

$34.99 3+ bottles 
$37.99

91 pts Wine Advocate
The 2022 Côte de Brouilly Cuvée Melanie, from a south-facing site in the Côte de Brouilly, is fresh in the glass with aromas of Indian spices, blackcurrants, black cherries, dark chocolate shavings and powdery purple petals. Medium to full-bodied, the wine is lush in the glass with a layered core of supple dark fruits melded with an invigorating wet-stone undertone. The wine follows an upward trajectory guided by a lining of fine-grained, structuring tannins, outlasting the fruit for a mouth-watering, piquant finish.

The discreet Daniel Bouland took over the family estate in the 1980s and now cultivates around nine hectares of vineyards in Morgon, Chiroubles and the Côte de Brouilly. Most of these vineyards are planted with old vines, some dating back to 1926, as in the Les Delys cuvée. The three hectares of vineyards are farmed conventionally but with attentive work by hand tying the goblets to protect them from sun and hail. Bouland employs whole-cluster fermentations lasting the better part of two weeks, followed by maturation for up to nine months in foudres or tanks, with only small dosages of SO2 added after malolactic fermentation. The ripe, sunny 2022 vintage showcases impressive depth and muscularity, standing out as one of Bouland's headier, more powerful recent vintages.