2021 Domaine Anita, Moulin -à- Vent Les Caves “Reine de Nuit” Cru Beaujolais, France.
The Domaine Anita label, led by Anita Neveu, as mentioned in my prior reviews, a former professional cyclist-turned winemaker who is a quickly rising in Beaujolais, has put out a set of delicious wines from 2021 and 2022, including this 2021 Reine de Nuit Moulin -à- Vent, which is a bit more classic in style with a medium body of purple/garnet dark berry, plum and strawberry fruits, along with a cool mineral tone, bright spicy notes, a hint walnut and sweet florals. The (Beaujolais Cru) 21s are not as deep and concentrated as the 2020 and 2022s, but this wine neatly makes up for that with silky drinkability and subtle earthy complexity, especially in this Domaine Anita, which is showing well now and is my favorite of the lineup. Coming from a distinctive parcel of mature vines set on granite and magnesium based soils the Reine de Nuit saw Anita’s usual a native yeast fermentation, after a cool maceration in cement with a combination of whole clusters, with some stem inclusion, but mostly de-stemmed berries. After the fermentation, this wine was raised for about 11 months in oak barrels, with an additional 5 or so months of bottle aging in the cellar before release. I have grown to enjoy these Domaine Anita Beaujolais over the last couple of vintages and I highly recommend Gamay fans check out the collection here, with the 2022s being a bit more fruit dense and maybe a bit more age worthy, but these 21s are lovely traditional efforts, and I look forward to wrapping the 2024s when then come out!
Anita (Kuhnel) Neveu, at Domaine Anita, as noted in previous reviews, is based in Chénas, she does mainly cru bottlings from Moulin -à- Vent, as seen here, but also has this plot of old vines in Morgon, which maybe get the most attention, a plot in Fleurie and another in Chénas. All of which are sustainably farmed, they feature in her lineup of lush Gamay offerings, and are from vines that range from 40 to 100 years old on mainly the classic granite based soils here. Importer, Neal Rosenthal says that Anita is assisted in making the wines by Guy Marion, who he adds, oversaw no fewer than 52 harvests as cellarmaster for Georges Duboeuf, so there is solid foundation of experience, along with youthful passion to play off of here. Anita has a collection of small concrete vats to ferment each parcel separately and that she uses a different percentage of whole cluster in each wine and she uses ex-Burgundy barrels to age the Cru bottlings like this one. I discovered Domaine Anita thanks to Stuart Pigott’s great writing at James Suckling, who very much peaked my curious nature and my love for Cru Beaujolais, the wines are great additions to a new generation of winemakers in the region that are lifting the wines to the next level here. I’m glad I held on to a few of Anita’s 21s, as they are drinking much better now than when I first started popping the corks on them, time has allowed them to gain depth and personality. I did a wine education tasting, that included this wine in the lineup and it was hugely well received and was brilliant transparent offering that helped display the raw terroir charm of Moulin -à- Vent in a very quaffable fashion.
($40 Est.) 92 Points, grapelive