Château Cambon Beaujolais 2020
Background
Wine drinkers have always recognized Beaujolais as THE quintessential easy-drinking fresh fruity red wine. The kind of red wine that you could drink with a slight chill, during a casual weeknight dinner. The purest expression of the Gamay grape, Beaujolais wines are infinitely easy to enjoy.
Chateau Cambon is a project headed up by Marie Lapierre, who along with her late husband Marcel, revolutionized wine making in Beaujolais in the 80s and 90s. They added a little more seriousness and intention to the wine making, without losing the easy-going enjoyment of juicy, delicious gamay.
This wine is a cuvée (blend) of grapes from two different ‘Crus’ (villages) in Beaujolais, Morgon and Brouilly. The vines have an average age of about 80 years!! Everything is harvested and sorted by hand, then fermented using natural yeasts in large 200-year-old barrels. This is the type of old-school winemaking that gets rebranded as ‘natural wine’ by the kids these days. This can be a nebulous term. We prefer to call this style of wine making ‘low-intervention’.
Really good Bojo always shows flavours of fresh red berries. Strawberries, raspberries… It will often have a slightly confected (candied) nature to it, almost like red liquorice. This particular wine shows a little more depth – the ‘Crus’ in Beaujolais have hard granitic soils and that add a firm mineral structure to the wine. Under all the fruit aromas, you’ll find dried herbs, and little bit of leather and meat/iron on the nose.
Beaujolais’ slightly fruity nature always lends itself well to salty, sweet foods, like cured meats. It’s also great with salty, sharp cheese. It’s the wine of choice for picnics and charcuterie boards alike.
Food Pairing
Mixed Nuts - Sipping Bojo is a great accompaniment to handfuls of salted, roasted nuts. The fresh fruit acidity cuts the fat and richness of the nuts, and the little bit of sweetness balances out some of the salt.
Doritos Nacho Cheese - Because of its ability to pair well with salty foods, Beaujolais is THE red wine to have on the couch with a big bag of Doritos. Just remember to put a little chill on the wine first, and it’ll be a refreshing, light red with which to enjoy many of episodes of Squid Game or Tiger King season 2.
Mac n’ Cheese - Gamay and cheddar (even fake cheddar) are great friends. Whether it’s old-school bechamel-laden, melty, oven-baked goodness, or a quick pot of KD, Bojo and Mac n’ Cheese are a great combo. Mix in hotdogs, or broccoli, or frozen peas…
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