One of the ten premier growing areas with its own APPELLATION (called CRU) in France’s BEAUJOLAIS region. It’s located upslope from the BROUILLY AC on Mont de Brouilly, where an annual pilgrimage is made each September to the Notre-Dame du Raisin (Our Lady of the Grape) chapel at the summit to ask protection for the coming harvest. These fruity wines, made from GAMAY grapes that tend to get more sunlight and therefore become riper, are more full-bodied (see BODY) and CONCENTRATED than those of Brouilly and some of the other Beaujolais cru. They have the highest minimum alcohol level (10.5 percent) in Beaujolais, which isn’t hard to achieve because of the high sugar content of the fully ripened grapes. Côte de Brouilly AC wines can AGE well for 2 to 3 years. The acreage of this AC is smaller, making the wines more difficult to find than those from Brouilly.