Of all of the Gang of Four, Guy Breton is the least well known in the UK. Jean Foillard and Marcel Lapierre have their wines listed the breadth of the country. Jean-Paul Thevenet is a bit less well-known. This is a product of size, Guy’s domaine is a fraction of the size of Lapierre and Foillard. Today, Foillard and Lapierre have increased to around 30 hectares, Guy’s has stayed small, only about 4 hectares in total.
The output of Breton and JP Thevenet is about the same (2,000 – 3,000 cases). Although stylistically different, it’s difficult to differentiate the quality of the Morgons of all four. They are all impeccable. Guy’s is a typically elegant expression, natural and pure but with perhaps a spice component somewhat similar to Alan Coudert at Clos de la Roilette.
He strives for balance without weight, without the dominance of wood, so he buys used barrels from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. Subsequently, his wines his are typically the lightest in colour, the lowest in alcohol, and the least tannic.
One of my favourite writers on anything (and Beaujolais in particular) Aaron Ayscough, says: “Guy Breton’s 2008 “P’tit Max” Morgon is a wine one doesn’t see anywhere near as often as one should on Paris wine lists. Presumably this is in accordance with Breton’s wishes, whatever they may be. Leap on it where you see it though: this is an absolutely magisterial Morgon, perhaps my favorite among a favoured appellation”
So, even in France they’re hard to pick-up. Most is whisked off to the US and Japan. I know the team at Kermit Lynch can be very effective at managing to extract large volumes from producers there. Jean-Paul Thevenet once described how they visit, pull their laptops out and work out immediately how much to take. It’s usually a very large number!