Nestled in Burgundy’s southernmost area is Beaujolais — home to ten crus within this region itself, and in particular, includes the sub-appellation of Moulin à Vent. It is here that the Chateau du Moulin a Vent resides, deriving its name from the historic windmill located among its vineyards. In its close to 300 years of winemaking, it has earned itself widespread recognition as being the Lord of Beaujolais wines for its distinctive terroirs and rich yet elegant wines.

Moulin à Vent's namesake windmill.

Whilst the Moulin à Vent appellation was only established around a hundred years ago in 1924, winemaking at Moulin à Vent actually dates back to the 16th century, when the vaulted cellar was built – this was where the wines would be aged. Chateau du Moulin à Vent had previously gone by the name Chateau des Thorins, which was best known for producing wines that were enjoyed by France’s royalty with the likes of King Louis XIV in the 17th century, having debuted the wine in the French court. Chateau des Thorins had been run by the Pommier family in 1732, and would see a century of female-led expansion and ascension in quality that started when Philiberte Pommier had inherited the estate in 1794. Under Philiberte, great care was taken to structure the operations of the vineyards and winery, with particular attention paid to producing exceptional wines with distinctive qualities and longevity to make them suitable for ageing. Moulin à Vent was distinctive enough that it eventually attained its own AO classification in 1921.

The vineyards were eventually sold to Julien Damoy in 1911, and remained under the ownership of the Damoy family until it was sold to the Parinet family in 2009. The Parinet's (led by Jean-Jacques, with his son Edouard) would invest heavily into the winery, bolstered by the enthusiasm that he and his son had long possessed for the wines of Moulin à Vent, as well as their belief in the potential and terroir of Beaujolais. Jean-Jacques had came to love Chateau du Moulin a Vent's wines as he was growing up in the 50's, which he would often enjoy at family lunches, with the wines from the estate considered "serious and classy". Having found success in tech, Jean-Jacques had now wanted to do something in the world of gastronomy, and having considered his son, Edouard's interest in winemaking, he would ultimately decide to purchase the Chateau du Moulin a Vent.

Édouard was joined by third-generation winemaker Brice Laffond in 2013. Before joining Édouard at Chateau du Moulin à Vent, Brice had his start in winemaking with one of France's most distinguished estates at Chateau Mouton Rothschild, with a particular focus on experimenting with plant material and massal selection. After an international oenological career that took him across California at the Spring Mountain Vineyard in Napa Valley, as well as the Giesen winery in New Zealand, Brice eventually returned to France to make his mark in Beaujolais at Chateau du Moulin à Vent. 

Édouard Parinet and Brice Laffond.

Despite Beaujolais' history of producing fine wines from the 17th to 19th century, during the period leading up to when the Parinets acquired Chateau du Moulin à Vent, the region had lost its allure and winemaking prestige. Beaujolais wines had become associated as table wines for casual drinking - enjoyable, but nothing too fancy to ring home about, and not the type of wine that would be often be cellared for ageing. And so Édouard and Brice had their work cut out for them to revitalize the historic estate at Moulin à Vent, as well as breathe new life to the reputation of Beaujolais wines. Together, Édouard and Brice worked over eight years on developing their own massale selection, reorganizing the vineyards, and converting to organic farming practices. 

Chateau du Moulin à Vent’s vineyards planted with old Gamay Noir vines were a result of a conscious decision made by Édouard and Brice to focus on one single grape varietal - Gamay - that was best suited to capture the distinct terroirs and ecological factors of each Moulin à Vent vintage. 

Chateau du Moulin à Vent has become well-known for its lieux-dit parcels that together compose the estate. In particular, highly regarded parcels include Aux Caves, Le Moulin à Vent, Les Vérillats, and La Rochelle, with other notable parcels being the Champ de Cour. The estate also showcases the terroir of Les Vérillats, La Rochelle, and Champ de Cour in their single vineyard Gamay wines. The four primary lieux-dits (Le Moulin a Vent, Aux Caves, Les Thorins and La Roche) are both bottled separately and then blended to form the flagship Chateau du Moulin a Vent cuvee.

Each of the different growths have their own unique terroirs and microclimates, owing to various elevations, orientations, and soil composition. Le Moulin à Vent is north-northeast-facing, enjoys a cool microclimate, and has thinner soils, producing grapes that have a fresh acidity with good balance. The vineyards of Les Thorins are south-facing and at a lower elevation on the slope, having access to soils with a higher concentration of clay, producing wines with a more rustic quality. The La Roche area, on the other hand, is east-facing and at an even lower elevation on the slope, reaching into more clay-intensive soils. The wines that arise from here are rounder, richer and have a creamier quality. 

The soils throughout the estate are abundant in copper, manganese, iron oxides, deep soil clay and top soil silica — conducive for achieving a complexity that can only be the product of over three hundred million years of erosion of France’s metamorphic granite foothills located in the center of the country. The high amounts of manganese in the vineyards’ soils allow the grapes to impart a firm and structural quality in the wines.

The diversity of terroirs and nuance of the soils, coupled with sufficient wind and sun exposure create a strong environment for the estate’s Gamay vines to thrive. This Gamay grape varietal gives a fresh and fruity quality when the wines are young and develops an elegance and complexity with age while retaining its unique freshness. Gamay grapes are also highly adaptable amidst climate change to produce fresh quality wines across vintages. Moulin à Vent’s commitment to organic farming practices and hand harvests of the grapes helps to ensure the optimal quality and maturity, with the estate having recruited over a hundred pickers to hand-pick the Gamay grapes.

The Gamay grape varietal 

In the continuous journey to revitalize the image of Beaujolais and showcase the highest potential of the region's terroirs, Chateau du Moulin à Vent has set out its ambition to create wines worthy of the Grand Vin title, as well as develop wines with large potential and ability for ageing, while also being able to be enjoyably drunk young. It's certainly exciting to discover the distinctive character of Moulin à Vent and to find out what the best of Beaujolais could be.

The Moulin à Vent vineyards the Parinet family had purchased were abundant with old vines, with some being planted around eighty years before. The grapes from the vineyards are pruned and harvested and low yields, owing to the high density planting of the vines, which are trained with the traditional three-spurs goblet method. Guyot vine training methods are prohibited on these vineyards to maintain the low yields and quality of the grapes - the harvest from these vineyards typically averaged around 30 hl/ha. This adherence to low-yield harvests ensures the richness and concentration of the grapes, which are balanced out with a fresh acidity attributable to the windy environment and low pH of the microclimate. 

"I don’t want to make fine wine,...Our chance in Moulin-à-Vent is to make wine that is good at all times.” says Edouard Parinet.

The winemaking methodology at Moulin à Vent also saw an evolution after Édouard and Brice took the helm of the estate. When Brice started experimenting with the winery, the early vintages of the wines were made with destemmed grapes. Brice then adapted his approach to adopting whole-bunch fermentation on a case by case basis, depending on the quality of the stems to decide whether or not they should be destemmed to preserve the austere character of the wines. His early use of cold-soaking were also eventually stopped to allow for the terroir to come through. The vatting period might come off shorter, yet there is now a longer and softer extraction period that sits between 13-15 days.

The ageing process of the wines saw some adjustments across the vintages as well. At the beginning, the fermented grapes underwent ageing in a mix of stainless steel and 350-liter oak barrels. This eventually moved to the wines being aged in smaller 228-liter Burgundy barriques, choosing to focus on the quality of a finer oak grain. A portion of the wine is aged in stainless steel, then after ten months of ageing, the steel-aged and barrique-aged wines are mixed together and placed in stainless steel. Today only one third of the cuvee is aged in barrel, with an additional year in bottle before being released, allowing for the wines to become rounder and with better tannin integration.

The evolution of the estate's winemaking approach and its journey towards producing Grand Vins that are enjoyable to drink both young and aged is evident across the earlier vintages from the early 2010s to today. Needless to say, Moulin à Vent has plenty of reasons to lay claim to the title of Lord of Beaujolais wines.

Wine Review: Chateau du Moulin à Vent

We got the chance to try Chateau du Moulin à Vent at the 2025 VinExpo held in Singapore which was nothing short of a wine lover’s dream, filled with hundreds of amazing vendors from around the world. You’ll also find Chateau du Moulin à Vent’s wines at Vintage Club (Singapore) who distributes them.

The vintage we’re looking at is the 2022 Moulin à Vent, made from a selection of three terroirs across the sandy and silica-rich vineyards – Moulin à Vent, Les Thorins, and La Roche. True to the character of the estate, the Moulin à Vent wine is made from 100% Gamay grapes, using traditional winemaking methods without sulphites, fermented at low temperatures not exceeding 25 degrees, aged for nine months in 25% oak barrels, and then nine months in stainless steel tanks.

That being said, let’s get to tasting!

Tasting Notes

Colour: Deep Ruby

Aroma: Really fresh and naturalistic earthy tones of freshly tilled soil, backed by darker red fruit preserves of raspberries and dark cherries. With time it develops to be more fruit forward, with more on red fruit jellies, jams and hard candy. There’s some leather as well, along with some blackberry pastilles that begin to emerge. It’s a vibrant and evocative pairing of fruit and earthiness, leaning more fruit forward, with a sense of rich chewiness.

Taste: Medium bodied here, filled in with those same dark red fruits of cherries and raspberry in the form of preserves, here with some black licorice as well. It has a lovely chewiness to the body, with a subtle meaty savouriness as well. It’s yet rich and plush with a nice tautness to the body. At the same time, it’s not over the top or overly ripe, without heaviness, even with a solid concentration and saturation. It has in fact a sensual quality of dark fruit preserves paired with a light savoury meatiness and some earthiness in the form of tobacco and leather.

Finish: Super soft and plush into the finish, seamless really, with still dark cherry and raspberry pastes, fruit leather and some of that meatiness of beef jerky. It’s clean and firm on the finish with soft and firm yet structured tannins providing a good frame to the chewy body.

My Thoughts

This was incredibly tasty and rather gastronomic for that matter with a boldness and forwardness of flavours that are balanced between dark red fruit preserves, earthiness and meatiness. And whilst the flavours are concentrated and well-saturated, it’s got a good weight yet without being heavy - in fact even going so far as to deliver this taut and almost chewy body that was incredibly satisfying (along the lines of fruit pastilles or gummies). Given the sensual and muscular boldness of the body, it should still be said that it fits perfectly within it firm frame and structured yet soft tannins.

Insanely enjoyable, yet utterly drinkable and approachable. This stands on its own but I could see it going really well with some charcuterie or wine bar food.

Till next time, happy sipping!

@ChopstickPride