Beaujolais - Moulin-à-Vent - Domaine de Bel-Air

Just 300 growers hold the key to the most prestigious of the Beaujolais Crus. Moulin-a-Vent vineyards are only to be found on the communes of Romanèche-Thorins in the Saône-et-Loire department and Chénas in the Rhône department. From its shimmering deep ruby to dark garnet robe come floral and fruity aromas of violet and cherry in its youth, taking on a stamp of iris, spice, ripe fruit and overblown rose, to truffle and even game as the years go by. Well-built and complex, Moulin-à-Vent is a cellaring wine par excellence, up to 10 years depending on the vintage. Fed by pink, crumbly granitic arena, here called gore or grès that is shot through with seams of the manganese that is at the root of its personality, Moulin-à-Vent is an intense and tannic wine. It is said of this Cru, like for the other more robust Beaujolais Crus, that it “pinotes”, coming close in characteristics to its Burgundian neighbours though the cherry personality of their grape variety.