Daniel Bouland, Morgon “Delys”

We’ve offered several of Daniel Bouland’s dense and savory cru Beaujolais wines over the years, and they’ve always been distinguished by a combination of power and grace. And what intrigued me most about this 2015 Morgon from Bouland’s prized “Delys” vineyard—where vines were planted in 1926, as indicated on the label—was its balance, even restraint, in a vintage characterized by super-ripe, often inky wines.This is not to say that “Delys” isn’t a bold, muscular style of cru Beaujolais—it always is—but in a “vintage of the century” like 2015, when you might have expected it to climb too far up on the ripeness scale, it maintained what might be called composure; not only is it an exuberant, aromatic, lushly fruited Morgon to drink tonight, it’s also a structured, mineral-laced wine to lay down in your cellar (highly advised). If you’ve ever had the acclaimed wines of Jean Foillard, a neighbor of Bouland, this wine performs in a similar way. This may well be chalked up to the ‘regulatory