“I love the Cru of Beaujolais, the diversity of the terroir, and what Gamay can become.”

Benjamin Azzara

Benjamin Azzara is building something unusually serious on a very small scale. What's interesting is not just that he's making powerful Beaujolais, but that he's taking Gamay completely seriously—as a grape variety with real depth, form, resilience, and aging potential, without losing the energy and drinkability that makes it so alluring in the first place.

Benjamin doesn't come out of nowhere. He has worked for more than ten years in the wine world, including stints at Charlopin-Parizot, Château Latour, and then as an assistant to Pierre Vincent at Domaine de la Vougeraie. That background is palpable. Not because the wines try to imitate Burgundy or Bordeaux, but because there is a discipline, a proportion, and a self-control in them that is rare at this level. The technique is never the point in itself. It is merely there to support what the vineyard is already trying to say.

What perhaps touches me most about Benjamin is how direct his work is. He practically does everything himself, and on several of my visits, I've met him out in the vineyards on rainy days, in the midst of trimming, tying up, or inspecting the vines. You feel very clearly that it's not an idea of wine he's trying to sell. He is genuinely fighting for what ends up in the glass.

About Domaine Azzara

Even though Domaine Azzara is a young estate, it already feels remarkably cohesive and clear in its expression. Benjamin built it around five hectares of old Gamay vines on a steep slope high in Chiroubles, with parcels spread across Chiroubles, Morgon, and Beaujolais-Villages. The soil of granite, quartz, and blue stone, the old gobelet vines, and the demanding incline provide the wines with a natural starting point of resilience, minerality, and precision. But what truly makes the estate convincing is not just the place itself—it's the way it's worked. Everything seems driven by presence, discipline, and a very personal will to take Gamay seriously.

Benjamin practically does everything himself, and on several of my visits, I've met him on rainy days in the middle of the vineyard, trimming, tying up, or inspecting the vines. This says something important about the wines. They don't feel like the result of an idea or an ambition alone, but of a person who is concretely fighting for what ends up in the glass. There's a rare direct connection between the work in the vineyard and the expression the wines achieve: a feeling of energy, resilience, and inner calm, without anything being polished or made pretty for its own sake.

In the cellar, Benjamin works with the same seriousness and sensitivity. Whole clusters, spontaneous fermentation, gentle maceration, aging in older barrels, and bottling without fining or filtration are not techniques used to create an effect, but to preserve the wine's form, clarity, and life. Nothing seems driven by style for style's sake. Instead, everything seems aimed at letting the slope, the fruit, and the vintage speak as purely as possible. This is precisely why the wines from Azzara feel so convincing: not as Beaujolais trying to be something else, but as an unusually pure, personal, and serious interpretation of a place and a winemaker with a very clear direction.