Beaujolais Nouveau Has Arrived
Every year on the third Thursday in November, corks pop at midnight in celebration of the arrival of the year's Beaujolais Nouveau, a light, fruity red wine from the Beaujolais region in France. While the wine's debut is a celebration for its home country, in the United States this wine symbolizes Thanksgiving. It's also cheap, easy to find, and very drinkable.
Gary Vaynerchuk, author of 101 Great Wines, described the wine as having, "Aromas of fresh rhubarb pie and little hints of black pepper." The flavor, he wrote, is, "Full of beautiful, complex fruit, with a slight soapy quality. It's like Mr. Bubbles meets Smucker's jam." Even with that slightly off putting description, Vaynerchuk actually loves Beaujolais Nouveau.
Besides the seasonal timing of the wine, Beaujolais Nouveau also proves unique because of two rules growers have to follow every year: It cannot be sold before the designated time and the Gamay grapes used must be hand-picked.
This year, drink your Beaujolais Nouveau with gratitude—many grape crops were lost this year due to wet weather in the region. The Associated Press reported that this year's crop was the smallest since 1975. So bring a bottle to your Thanksgiving feast and toast to joy of tasty wine and tradition.
Related: Serious Grape: Feeling Bullish About Beaujolais
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7 Comments:
I love it with turkey. A perfect pairing.
jackiecat at 6:24PM on 11/20/08
This year's is pretty awful - describing any aspect of it as 'complex' is absurd.
PTCHFRKR at 6:37PM on 11/20/08
It's not complex at all, but it is light and easy drinking.
Red Icculus at 8:59PM on 11/20/08
as I said on the other thread about this, I heard it favors "sweaty socks".
ew
Southern_bella at 9:29PM on 11/20/08
@ Southern_bella Ack. I have never considered this wine to be flavored as "sweaty socks," or "Mr. Bubbles" for that matter. It's a nice, easy wine to drink. And like Thanksgiving, it's a fun tradition, that can taste amazing, or not, but it feels like home. A French home that is!
Linnea Covington at 3:25AM on 11/21/08
I like the idea of rhubarb pie with black pepper but I can't imagine drinking something that tastes like Smucker's Jam with Mr. Bubbles, especially not with a meal! Maybe my palate just isn't sophisticated enough. But I find it interesting to read about the different protocols that go into making different wines. This article added some new information to my brain files.
jaywarner at 8:37AM on 11/21/08
I have tried to wrap my head around the Nouveau phenomenon for the past few years, and I just don't get it. Every time I've tried it, its been very tart and astringent (this year's vintage of the duboeuf has a VERY strong urea element to it), and every one of my wine senses tells me that its just wrong. My theory is that its the beverage equivalent of fruit cake. Everyone buys it to give as gifts for the holidays, but the people buying it are never the end consumers. Either that or its some cruel joke that people who are knowledgeable about wine play on the less educated.
jboylan at 10:06PM on 11/21/08