2009 Vincent Girardin FLEURIE "Domaine de la Chapelle" "Vieilles Vignes" (Beaujolais, France)

I usually go for old-school, traditional-tasting wines.  Particularly with Beaujolais, where the old school has tight, intensely stony, refreshing and linear wines, and the new school (DeBouef and many of the negociants) is, to my taste, muddled, sometimes flabby, and usually uninteresting. This one is not old school, but, dang, it's good!  This is how modern style should be done.

Strikingly deep, pure, violet-tinged ruby.  Wonderfully inviting nose of juicy plums and sweet, dark cherries along with a tangy, powdered stone note.  Bone dry, yet ripe and juicy in the mouth.  Nicely structured, with refreshing acids and a little but of very fine-grained tannin.  Nice purity.  A joy to drink.  Great balance too.  The only thing it lacks is a bit more minerally complexity, but it's Beaujolais, so maybe I'm being too analytically hard on it.  A-.  Imported by Vineyard Brands, I got this for $14.99 from Winex.com.