Cru Chiroubles is a human-sized appellation that spreads over 320 ha (790 acres).
The specificity of Cru Chiroubles is the succession of 4 circuses with valleys with sharp altitude differences: the vineyards are set between 270 and 600 metres above sea-level, with an average of 410 metres above sea-level, ensuring freshness in the wines despite climate change.
The slopes are often over 30%, this is the steepest of the Beaujolais Crus.
All the stages of vine-tending are meticulously carried out by around 60 artisan vinegrower-winemakers, who take every aspect of this hazardous terroir into account. Almost all vine-tending work – especially doing upkeep on the ‘rases’ or ‘traversiers’ that hold back the soil and prevent erosion – and including, of course, the harvest, is done by hand. The vinegrower-winemakers who work this singular terroir at altitude put their personalities into their vines and wine.
Cru Chiroubles occupies 100% granitic soil throughout the appellation area (it is the only entirely homogenous Beaujolais Cru). This, 350 million-year-old granite has very gradually mutated into crumbly saprolite that is locally called ‘gore’, the wellspring for a terroir eminently suited to Gamay Noir.
