Jean-Paul Brun's 2007 Beaujolais Blanc

I am just over the moon about the 2007 Domaine des Terres Dorées (Jean-Paul Brun) Beaujolais Blanc Chardonnay. I know that's a mouthful / eyeful, but at the end of the day, it's just Jean-Paul Brun's most recent chardonnay.

Many of you know Brun as a leader among natural wine makers and that he has run afoul of the French certifiying organization INAO for making red Beaujolais that is maybe a little too natural, a little too distinctive, and a little too good. For example, he uses almost no SO2 and eschews the industrial yeast employed by most Beaujolais bottlers that turn their oversugared, gamay-based wines into banana-scented plonk. Brun makes the good stuff.

But I am talking now about his Beaujolais Blanc, made from 100% chardonnay.

Brun's unoaked chardonnay is unusually interesting, complex, and delicious for a wine this affordable, which I nabbed for $17. Peaches, cream, hay, sage, toasted almonds, and fruit blossoms make themselves known on the nose. These characteristics are nicely integrated on the palate and joined by well-structured citric acidity, a creamy texture, beautiful brown spices, and pure, gorgeous minerals on the long finish. It frankly reminds me more of a Rorero Arneis than many a white Burgundy. Whether you agree with that or not, you may well agree that this is fabulous stuff for short-term drinking (the plastic Nomacork further ensures, I think, a somewhat brief drinking window).

For all the body this wine has, its subtler charms were, to my surprise, lost when I paired it with a creamy walnut-and-basil pasta dish. I mean, everything was quite nice and no one lost a limb or anything, but next time I'll pair it with a white fish.