Château du Moulin-à-Vent stands beside the stone windmill, built in 1550, that gave this corner of northern Beaujolais its name. Records of the estate go back to 1732, when it was known as Château des Thorins. It took its current name in 1936, the year Moulin-à-Vent was decreed one of France’s first AOCs. In 1911 the property sold for the first time in its recorded history, to Julien Damoy, who also grew grapes in Chambertin Clos de Bèze. His heirs held it until Jean-Jacques Parinet and his son Édouard bought it in 2009. Winemaker Brice Laffond joined them in 2013, and the Parinets then did three things. They replanted underperforming parcels from their own massal selection. They began farming organically that same year, with certification arriving in 2024.
They mapped roughly thirty hectares of old gamay vines into twenty-three distinct terroirs. The vines are planted at 10,000 or more per hectare, against an appellation minimum of 6,000. They average 27 hectoliters per hectare, less than half the legal limit. In the cellar, the grapes pass over two sorting tables and ferment with about a third whole clusters, one pump-over a day, and temperatures held below 77°F. There is no carbonic maceration and no added sulfur. The Wine Advocate’s David Schildknecht judged the estate’s holdings likely the finest set of parcels in the appellation, and Wine & Spirits named it one of the 100 best wineries in the world in 2017, 2020 and 2021. Its three single-vineyard wines, Champ de Cour, La Rochelle and Les Vérillats, all come from sites Moulin-à-Vent submitted for premier cru recognition in 2024.
Champ de Cour covers 3.28 hectares at 220 meters, on a gentle east-facing slope at the foot of the granite mount where the windmill stands. The hill shelters it from the wind that sweeps most of the appellation. Granite stones cover the surface and give way to deep, pale, clay-rich soils, so the roots have to dig for water and nutrients. The vines average around 35 years old. This is a site that comes into its own in warm, sunny vintages like 2020. After a fermentation of 15 to 18 days, the wine aged for 18 months, a quarter of it in French oak barrels, none of them new, and the rest in stainless steel.
Roger Voss of Wine Enthusiast gave the 2020 94 points and singled out the acidity and structure that set it up for long aging. It opens with black cherry and violet, then fills in with plum dusted in black pepper, rose and peony, and a thread of woodsmoke over ripe, fine-grained tannins. It can seem reserved when first poured, some air brings the fruit forward. Drink through 2035.
