The 2015 Moulin a Vent Clos du Grand Carquelin has a very ripe, rounded nose with plush red and black fruit, melted tar, roasted herbs and just a touch of volatility. It does not quite deliver the detail of the 2014. The palate is rich and heady on the entry with decadent, plush red fruit and quite sharp acidity that does not quite sing from the same hymn sheet. I feel that this Moulin-à-Vent struggles to cope with the warmth of the growing season and the finish is a little simple given the terroir. It is not a displeasurable Beaujolais but it does not really take you anywhere.

The 2014 Moulin a Vent Clos du Grand Carquelin offers a smudged nose of red cherries, cranberry and a slight metallic scent that suggested just a small touch of reduction. Sour cherry dominates the entry that feels quite structured and masculine for a Beaujolais. The acidity is nicely judged with good weight and length, the fruit turning darker towards the finish. I just find a little warmth on the back palate on the aftertaste that will need to be addressed as the wine ages.

The 2013 Moulin-à-Vent Clos du Grand Carquelin has a fragrant bouquet with wild strawberry and Morello cherry scents that are detailed and offer more intensity than the "La Rochelle". The palate is medium-bodied with crisp tannin and fine acidity, more tension and race here compared to the aforementioned Moulin-à-Vent with a pleasing, lightly spiced finish. This is very fine.

The 2012 Moulin-a-Vent Clos du Grand Carquelin comes from granite and quartz soils and sees 10 months in new Alliers oak barrel. Here, the wood is quite dominant at the moment, lending it a very seductive sheen, although it needs to express its terroir with more clarity. The palate is medium-bodied with silky smooth tannins and well-judged acidity. There is plenty of velvety black fruit here, almost sumptuous toward the finish that is very well-balanced. Give this Moulin-a-Vent 3 to 4 years in bottle. Drink 2017-2025. As well as substantial holdings in the Cote d’Or, Maison Louis Jadot also tend significant holdings south in Beaujolais and most notably have owned the 80 hectares belonging to Chateau des Jacques since 1996. Harvest is done by hand, sorted and completely de-stemmed, Chateau des Jacques being one of the first to introduce this practice. Guillaume del Castelnau manages the winery. The wines are fermented naturally and raised in French oak barrels, including what, for this region, represents quite a generous proportion of new oak. It should be clear that there is a strong Burgundy influence on the wines of Chateau des Jacques. It is a matter of taste whether you see this as a good or bad thing. There is no doubt that the standards are as exacting as they are in Burgundy, yet the case can be put forward that wine has a duty to express its region and not mimic others, even if they might be inherently superior. That is a very tricky question to answer, and yours will depend on what is important to you in a bottle of wine. Personally, I have always found the wines from Chateau des Jacques well-crafted and with a propensity to reward cellaring. On the other hand, if it was myself making the decision, I would just pull back from that generous veneer of new oak to allow the terroir to come through, because even with age, it can render the wines just a little “formulaic.” Imported by Kobrand, Inc., New York, NY; tel. (212) 490-9300

The Chateau des Jacques 2011 Moulin-a-Vent Clos du Grand Carquelin reveals scents of nutmeg, almond extract, and vanilla as well as lightly cooked ripe cherry. It comes to the palate expansive and rich yet, felicitously, juicy and buoyant as well as possessed of alluringly bitter-sweet and elusive inner-mouth iris perfume. Along with saliva-drawing salinity and savory shrimp shell reduction, the merest hint of caramelization is incorporated in its long, succulent finish. Here is a classic instance of virtually 100% new wood at this estate scarcely sapping textural allure or primary juiciness, a phenomenon that de Castelnau is more inclined to attribute to the quality of grape tannins and sheer extract of vinous raw material that results from long but gentle, watchful fermentative extraction (usually followed by malo) as opposed to crediting the provenance or treatment of the estate’s barrels (though surely these represent a glove-fit). “The wine has to be completely constructed before going to barrel” is how he puts it, echoing Jean-Marie Guffens’ well-known and far more than just clever adage that “a wine can take as much new wood as it doesn’t need.” Plan to follow this one through at least 2019. (The 2010 rendition of Carquelin, when tasted alongside, performed at the upper end of my Issue 196 projection, adding some mossy, forest floor mystery to the bright red berries and saline, meaty savor I detailed there.) While wine guru Jacques Lardiere has retired after more than four decades as Jadot’s technical director, his choice as hands-on director of Chateau des Jacques when Jadot purchased it in 2000, Guillaume de Castelnau, remains in charge there. (You can read more about their aspirations and methods for Beaujolais in my Issue 184, 190, and 196 reports.) That the team here considers the 2011 harvest – which began on August 27 but had already concluded on September 9 – a rousing success will come as no surprise just from scanning my scores. Only two wines in the eventual collection even came near to reaching 13.5% alcohol, yet all are richly fruited and generously mouth-filling, and most of them already texturally alluring as well, even given 20-30 days of fermentative extraction (via both punch-downs and pump-overs in a regimen adapted to each site). I’ll let the estate’s two bottlings that debuted this vintage – plus one inaugurated in 2010 – introduce themselves by way of the relevant tasting notes, but readers should note that the absence of reviews for 2011 vintage wines from Champs de Cour, Clos des Thorins, or (in Morgon) Roche Noire reflects a decision by the domaine to eliminate separate bottlings from those sites, whose fruit will instead entirely inform – and, no doubt, enrich – the relevant generic bottlings. (De Castelnau did hold open the option of an occasional special, perhaps market- or even client-dedicated bottling from one or more of these sites.) With the exception of one Morgon cuvee still in cask when I tasted it last December, all of the 2011 reds from Chateau des Jacques were bottled in late July and early August of last year. In keeping with a convention noted in the introduction to this report, I have also published here new notes on single-site Chateau des Jacques 2010s to the extent (often considerable, and then always positively!) that they performed outside the bounds of the (two-point spread) projections that accompanied my tasting notes on them from barrel or tank in Issue 196. I have appended to my note on the corresponding 2011, or most nearly related 2010, brief parenthetic comments on the recent bottle performances of any 2010 if its rating fell within my Issue 196 projection. Imported by Kobrand, Inc., New York, NY; tel. (212) 490 9300