Julien Duport (Côte de Brouilly, BEAUJOLAIS)

Julien Duport is NOT Foillard or Lapierre

Julien’s “La Folie” lieu-dit on the pink granite of Brouilly, looking across at the Mont Brouilly (Côte de Brouilly).

After reading another wine merchant’s offer on a new Beaujolais grower, a previous employer jokingly asked me, “can’t anyone write an offer for Beaujolais without mentioning Lapierre or Foillard?” So with this out of the way, I can’t wait to introduce you to the wines from an exciting young vigneron in Côte de Brouilly – and whose wines are unlike ANY Beaujolais I have ever tasted.

Although his parents never made wine, Julien Duport’s uncle, grandfather, and great-grandfather all did, and Julien knew from age 4 that he was destined to become a vigneron. Just as he finished his schooling in 2003, the local bulk grape market collapsed, so Julien took over the farming of his family parcels, most of which are old bush vines planted en gobelet, planted beginning in 1885, and some of which are still pre-phylloxera vines on the original French rootstock.

After two decades of honing his craft, Julien now has a total of 6.5 hectares under production and has returned to many of the old methods of his grandfather: plowing by horse and hand plow, fermenting in cement tanks using only native wild yeasts and without SO2, doing a long élévage in neutral barrels and large foudres, and then botting without any filtration or fining. In a word, everything we’ve learned to look for in Beaujolais, but stylistically they are focused less on the taste of partial carbonic maceration as most are today (which, don’t get me wrong, can still be absolutely delicious!) but more on a historical-throwback style to when Beaujolais growers sold their wine in barrels (because when has 750mls of Brouilly ever been enough?)  Duport makes beauties that taste like what you’d imagine from in a rich and generous vintage like 1959. Grand Cru Beaujolais that you can drink now with steak, or stick in the cellar for decades.

If not concentrated, elegant, memorable Brouilly, made from horse-plowed pre-Phylloxera Gamay from the fin-de-siècle, then what in the world of wine do we have to get excited about?

Julien Duport 2021 Brouilly “La Folie” (pdf tech sheet)

Julien Duport 2022 Brouilly “La Folie” (pdf tech sheet)

Julien Duport 2019 Brouilly “Les Balloquets” (pdf tech sheet)

Julien Duport 2020 Brouilly “Les Balloquets” (pdf tech sheet)

Julien Duport 2020 Côte de Brouilly “Lieu-dit Brouilly” (pdf tech sheet)

Julien Duport 2022 Côte de Brouilly “Lieu-dit Brouilly” (pdf tech sheet)

Julien Duport 2019 Côte de Brouilly “La Boucheratte” (pdf tech sheet)

Julien Duport 2022 Côte de Brouilly “La Boucheratte” (pdf tech sheet)

Julien Duport 2019 Côte de Brouilly “La Sueur au Front” (pdf tech sheet)

Julien Duport 2020 Côte de Brouilly “La Sueur au Front” (pdf tech sheet)