Laurence & Rémi Dufaitre "Premices" Beaujolais-Villages 2023

Press 4 Mix/Red • August 2025 Direct Press Selection

You can’t talk vin de soif without mentioning the Gamays of the Beaujolais, a small region in the south of Burgundy. Light, crunchy, and great with a chill, they’re incredibly versatile wines that deliver pure juiciness without sacrificing complexity. While the region became widely known for Beaujolais Nouveau, the bulk wine bottled and released shortly after picking and finishing fermentation, a counter movement emerged in the 1980s when a group of growers in Morgon, later called the “Gang of Four”, returned to traditional farming and low-intervention winemaking inspired by Jules Chauvet. Marcel Lapierre, Jean Foillard, Jean-Paul Thévenet, and Guy Breton led that effort, showing that Beaujolais could be both joyful and transparent to terroir and vintage.

Rémi Dufaitre started out selling his grapes to the local co-op until he felt confident enough in his approach to spontaneous fermentation to bottle his own wine. That first vintage was 2010, and when Jean Foillard tasted it, he immediately reached out and helped connect Rémi to his Parisian clientele. These days, Rémi is practically an unofficial member of the extended gang of four, part of a new wave of producers carrying Beaujolais into its next chapter.

For me, Premices was one of the first wines that sparked my excitement about Beaujolais and natural wine. When I first tasted it, knowing very little about wine at the time, it completely shifted my perspective. It had an emotional pull: just the right amount of juicy red cherries with hints of cola and cinnamon, without veering into anything too cloying, a touch of earth and gravel, a hint of wildness and funk, all wrapped up in a wine that’s crunchy, vibrant, and best served cold. It quickly became my weekday, budget friendly gateway into the world of more sought-after Beaujolais producers like Christian Ducroux, the late Julie Balagny, and Yvon Métras, all of them making wines I think of as “quintessential bistro wines”: endlessly food-friendly, though chances are you’ll finish the bottle before you even think about dinner. As we tasted through wines for the club this month, I revisited Premices for the first time in about five years, and it still delivers exactly how I remember.  Nico Haunold