Georges Duboeuf Starts Making Own Beaujolais Wines

Négociant is producing five crus at new winery.

Dana Nigro
Posted: November 21, 2002

Longtime Beaujolais négociant Georges Duboeuf has begun making some of his own wines starting with the 2002 vintage. After 37 years of buying and bottling wines from the region's growers and producers, his family company completed work on its own winery this September.

The Duboeuf family explained the initiative as a way to ensure quality -- a response to finding that some area producers were not keeping up their previous standards. "It was better for us to build our own cellar to produce some wines to our taste as winemakers," said Franck Duboeuf, who runs the company along with his father.

Duboeuf does not own vineyards in Beaujolais; he works with some 400 growers, selecting wines that fit the house style for blends, and bottling some individual domaines under their own names.

The new winery, Les Jardins des Vignes, is across the road from Duboeuf's current facility in Romanèche-Thorins. The winery has the capacity to produce up to almost 67,000 cases -- a small fraction of what the négociant sells. (This year, it is shipping 200,000 cases of 2002 Beaujolais Nouveau alone to the United States.) For now, the facility is being used to make five Beaujolais crus -- Brouilly, Régnié, Juliénas, Morgon and Moulin-à-Vent.

Visitors will be able to tour the winery beginning in April 2003.

Check our recent ratings of Georges Duboeuf wines.

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