Anne-Sophie Dubois Fleurie l'Alchimiste, Beaujolais, France 2022

Anne-Sophie Dubois is part of a young generation of vignerons redefining the identity of Beaujolais. Born and raised in Champagne, she caught the wine bug early and spent her formative years learning the ropes in Burgundy. (Far from the usual story of winemakers in Beaujolais.) 

The economics of vineyard ownership in France have made many regions unapproachable for a young vigneron without a considerable amount of wealth. Beaujolais is one of the few where that is not yet the case. Anne-Sophie fell in love with Gamay and decided that Fleurie was where she wanted to call home. Her domaine is composed of eight hectares in the heart of Fleurie that are now organically farmed. Most of her plots are already of considerable age, her oldest are 60+ years old.

If Fleurie has provided Anne-Sophie a canvas of old vines and granitic soils, she brings to the table a strong commitment to working the soil, staying out of the way in the winery, and a style that favors a Burgundian approach to vinification.

Anne-Sophie Dubois has mastered the art of crushable Beaujolais. Her love for Gamay led her to Fleurie, where she now organically farms eight hectares of vines. Anne-Sophie says that wine is "a sum of details" and for her this means manual harvesting, meticulous sorting, and spontaneous fermentation. L'Alchimiste is named after the Paulo Coelho novel—it's 100% destemmed, bottled (as always) unfined and unfiltered.