Jean Foillard’s estate comprises of 11 ha, including 5 ha in the fabled Cote de Py climat.
Jean uses the minimal interventionist viticulture, but his wines are neither officially organic nor biodynamic even though he actually applies many of the rules. The use of oak is minimum as the fruit and great terroirs are let to express themselves.
“I’m finding myself reaching for descriptors such as elegant and expressive - words you`d associate
more with Chambolle-Musigny than Beaujolais.
The soft texture is the best thing about this wine, and it makes you want to drink. It has no heaviness,
it isn’t making an effort, it has nothing to prove. After a while longer, herb and tea elements begin to emerge.
Then the bottle is empty,leaving me longing for more. It has teased my palate and left me wanting another glass.
It is fantastically drinkable”. (Jamie Goode)
" Take the Foillards in Morgon, for example. Morgon is in the heart of the Beaujolais, and is as tumblingly pretty a winegrowing landscape
as you can find anywhere. Jean Foillard is one of the region`s greatest growers, and he has a big parcel of vines up on the Côte de Py,
whose iron-stained, `rotten` (or crumbled) schist soils produce wines out of which regiments of cherries march like gleaming toy soldiers.
His wife, Agnès, has turned their rambling old farm into a warm, modern guesthouse where I stayed that night, eating, as darkness fell,
with her and the children. When we had tasted wine a little earlier, the children were playing in the courtyard; an old neighbour (the man
who organised the village band) had dropped in; other guests had arrived, tasted and talked about the wine, comparing it to others they
knew. Bordeaux, maybe... or a fresh red from Chinon... and what about Santenay?... or then there`s Poulsard from the Jura...
Their voices faded. I wrote in the book about the intense emotion Jean Foillard`s Morgon suddenly produced in me; what I didn`t write
about was how, at the same moment, I was suddenly hit by an overwhelming sense of rootedness. The Foillards seemed, for a few
moments, like their own vines, anchored in the Côte de Py, belonging to it, exploring it for a short lifetime, before their own children
arrived, and their children`s children, and so on, like another line of toy soldiers, marching off into the future."
Andrew Jefford
