It’s never too late for a renaissance. Nearing 60, the extremely humble and hard-working vigneron, Jean-Louis Dutraive unintentionally became one of Beaujolais’ iconoclastic vignerons. Between 2010-2016 (perhaps some years prior to those as well), Jean-Louis found his own uniquely elegant style that inspired an entire generation of local growers and extended well beyond Beaujolais and France into the global wine scene. Perhaps one of Beaujolais’ most elegant appellations, Fleurie is dominated by granite soils with a broad variation of altitudes and expositions. Jean-Louis’ Fleurie vines are on softer slopes at lower altitudes with deeper sandy soils than those at higher altitudes, which make for more elegant and aromatic wines. Jean-Louis’ Brouilly is a unique wine grown on limestone, which imparts more power, color and weight when compared to his range of Fleurie wines. All vineyards are farmed naturally with EU organic certification and most of the wines are bottled with little to no added sulfites. Jean-Louis’ offspring (Ophélie, Justin and Lucas) began to take greater stylistic control of the domaine in 2017, led by his daughter, Ophélie.