Eau Forte

Jean Claude Lapalu : Pioneer of Beaujolais Natural Wine

Grandson and son of a winegrower, Jean Claude Lapalu settled in Brouilly in Beaujolais in 1982 on 12 hectares of vines (aged up to 70 years) with granite soils.

At the beginning, he sold his grape production to the local cooperative cellar (until 1995). In 1996, he began to vinify his first vintages himself. Lapalu didn’t make natural wine right away. It was thanks to Jules Chauvet that he oriented himself towards vinification without exogenous yeasts, nor chaptalisation, and other oenological inputs (just a mini dose of sulphites).

In the vineyard, Jean-Claude Lapalu also prohibits any synthetic chemical product, leaves grass to promote microbial life, and limits yields. If it seems nowadays just a matter of common sense, at the time it was something subversive… This is the premise of the natural wine movement!

Lapalu Wines

Today, Lapalu wines can be found in wine shops and restaurants around the world. We have come across them in wine bars from Japan to Canada, via Georgia. Jean-Claude Lapalu‘s juices, vinified in carbonic maceration, some of which are aged in amphorae (Alma Mater), are of a finesse, an elegance and a depth that leave no one indifferent. There are often great names in natural wine that have built up a popularity only because they were present in the early years, without their wines living up to their reputation (we have all tasted them…). But Lapalu‘s are just incredible. But everyone knows that already…