Christophe Pacalet

Christophe Pacalet started his own house in 1999, in Cercié, in Beaujolais, with his uncle Marcel Lapierre, the great name of Morgon. He is a cousin of Mathieu Lapierre and of Philippe Pacalet, who makes wine in Burgundy.

He did not come from a winemaking school: he studied biology and chemistry at university and worked nine years as a cook, in Lyon and in the Caribbean, alternating the kitchen with helping his uncle in the cellar.

He began as a négociant, buying grapes from selected plots, and today vinifies seven of Beaujolais' ten crus: Fleurie, Saint-Amour, Côte de Brouilly, Chénas, Juliénas, Chiroubles and Moulin-à-Vent, as well as Beaujolais and Beaujolais-Villages. In Fleurie he also has the Les Labourons vineyard.

He works with whole clusters and native yeasts, with minimal sulphur, in wooden truncated-cone vats and with an old vertical wooden press; then he ages in foudres. Les Labourons 2023 is 100% Gamay on pink granite sand: 2 to 3 weeks of cold carbonic maceration without SO2 and 6 to 8 months on fine lees in 50-hectolitre concrete tanks.