Thank you to importer Louis/Dressner for this Desvignes profile:

(Click here for more on Desvignes on the LDM website and here for the Desvignes website)

Louis-Claude Desvignes was of the sparrow-type Beaujolais vigneron: raven-black hair that was, more often than not, standing in various directions, bright eyes and prominent nose, and a well-pitched, humorous cackle. His energy level was also twittery, barely standing still for a minute during a tasting in his cellars, offering a bottle of this and a bottle of that: various experimentations, filtrations, perhaps an older vintage of something educational. The seriousness of his winemaking, however, was never in doubt.

Louis-Claude passed away in 2021; at that point he'd been long retired, having  passed the estate to his children Claude-Emmanuelle and Louis-Benoît, the eight generation to work this land. Emmanuelle joined in 2001 and Benoît in 2004; while little has changed stylistically, their their arrival has brought some major shifts. 100% of the production is now estate-bottled (Louis-Claude sold about 50% of his production to négociants), the estate is now certified organic and the two have started a small négociant largely but not exclusively focused on producing single-vineyard expressions within Morgon.

The family's historic vineyards have been within the Morgon cru for generations. Their first cuvée comes from multiple, complimentary plots blended together to produce "La Voûte Saint-Vincent" The majority of the vines are on the Côte du Py in the center of Morgon, the fruit of which is of far superior quality to that produced in the outlying areas of the appellation. If there were a classification of vineyards in Morgon, Côte du Py would be a premier cru and Javernières a grand cru. They are located on the best exposition of the hill, with soil of decomposed schist, and Javernières is a plot within the Côte du Py with a little more clay.

Throughout the 1990's and 2000's Louis-Claude began picking fruit later than the other vignerons in the area with a mind to get fruit at optimal ripeness. As the planet continues to grow hotter, his children have re-evaluated these methods without sacrificing the grapes' full potential. The wines are vinified by the traditional cru Beaujolais method with a grille to keep the cap submerged. Recently, the fermentation has been longer and more controlled than in the past in order to extract the color and material that are the most obvious virtues of this wine.

Morgon is, along with Moulin-à-Vent, the most age worthy of the Cru Beaujolais and Desvignes wines are fine examples. The wines age terrifically and take on the character of Pinot Noir, or pinotize (the term used in Beaujolais). When young, the character is of dark cherry, raspberry and blackcurrant. With age, the wines become more earthy, velvety with cocoa and coffee tones.