Domaine Diochon Moulin-a-Vent, 2000

Of the 10 Beaujolais Crus, Morgon and Moulin-a-Vent are the two most ageworthy. Selected and imported by Kermit Lynch, Domaine Diochon's Moulin-a-Vent is a wine I would buy more frequently if it were available in my marketing area. It's produced from old Gamay vines planted on granite slopes and made by Bertrand Diochon using traditional methods, with aging in large barrels that allow the fruit to speak without oak accents.

The color is lighter than the Jean Descombes Morgon described below, and it's somewhat murky. That may be because the wine has not had fining or filtration. The nose, though, is beautiful. As with the Morgon, smells are in the cherry/kirsch mode but fully developed into a bouquet, understated and complex. On the palate, the wine is pure silk with texture and flavors that unfold gracefully into a long finish. At nine years of age, this wine is a thing of beauty. Wine critic Steve Tanzer, in reporting on the current 2008 vintage of Domaine Diochon, said he drank the 1989 recently "and it was gorgeous."