Julien Sunier Wild Soul Beaujolais Village 2022

Julien Sunier has gone from being rising star to firmly established as one of the best producers in Beaujolais. Following in the footsteps of pioneers like his friends Marcel Lapierre and Jean-Paul Thévenet he works organically and biodynamically in the vineyard and naturally in the winery. Julien now has 7.5 hectares of organically farmed vines in Regnié, Fleurie and Morgon. When I first visited him in 2016, he emphasised how hard it is to work organically in Beaujolais, and just how back breaking the work can be. ‘We have opportunities to rent because people are getting old,’ says Julien, who talks much more than his younger brother. ‘Young people are beginning to arrive in Beaujolais. It’s pretty trendy and we have a good group of natural winemakers, but when you see the size of the vineyard, we need the young generation to come here.’

He says that organics is rare in Beaujolais because the vineyards are difficult to manage. The issue is manual weed control with the densely planted bush vines. ‘We are very proud to farm organically,’ he says. ‘It is almost double the cost in the vineyard but our price isn’t twice as much. In his small winery he works semi-carbonically (starting off fermentation carbonically but later pumping over and plunging as you would do in Burgundy), believing that full carbonic can risk losing the terroir. He only adds sulfur dioxide at bottling. Julien’s wines are really elegant and expressive. They have purity and express their terroirs really well.

Beaujolais’ other claim to fame is its crucial role in developing natural wine. Partly in reaction to what they saw as an increasingly industrial approach to winemaking in the 80s, a group of vignerons were among the first to develop the minimal chemical approach that has inspired so many winemakers. The Beaujolais natural wine scene is still buoyantly influential, with many of the best bottles made by growers working in or around that milieu. Among my favourites are wines by brothers Antoine and Julien Sunier, who each produce wines in their own independent domains. I loved the super-sappy vibrancy of Julien Sunier Wild Soul 2022. David Williams, The Guardian (November 2023)

Vineyard: Due to large crop losses in 2016, Julien Sunier founded a small negociant project and went in search of fruit for Wild Soul. This Vin de France is a blend of Gamay from Beaujolais Villages and Regnie Cru.