Beaujolais Nouveau

[mikeycook]

I agree... that's nice!

I went to a tasting last Thursday, sampled five, and bought three.  I thought the Michel Picard was the best, but it wouldn't be nouveau night without Georges DuBoeuf!  That is consistent, except for last year when it was better than it's been in several years.

We just bought three bottles of the DuBoeuf 2003 Beaujolais-Villages and it's good, too.  I'm on the lookout for his 2003 Moulin-à-Vent and Morgon.

←

I bought four bottles of the Duboeuf Moulin-a-Vent Cuvee Prestige through Winebid and just got them delivered, so it should be hitting in the marketplace now.

[Daniel Rogov]

First of all, to live anywhere in France and not to be out and on the town at midnight on the third Thursday of November is an out and out sin - quite enough to either condemn you directly to hell or to label you once and forever as a misogynist! Nobody drinks nouveau Beaujolais because it's a good wine...people drink it because its a social phenomenon and because drunk nicely chilled in large mouthfulls it can be great fun, especially when ordered by the pichet (pitcher) at your favorite wine bar or bistro.

No one has ever made a "great" nouveau Beaujolais, no one ever will and no one strives for that. At their best they are light, refreshing, and, for lack of a better word "fun"......and forgive me but sometimes "fun" is an admirable goal to seek in this too often too troubled world.

Second, let me remind us all that nouveau Beauolais is neither the begin-all or the end-all of what happens in Beaujolais. There are of course the cru Beaujolais wines - Morgan, Moulin-a-Vent, Julianas, etc and many of those are indeed excellent wines, well worthy of our consideration.

As to me, wherever I find myself in the world on the night of the nouveau Beaujolais will find me in whatever bars, pubs, cafes, wine stores that are opening the wine precisely at midnight. (True sometimes I get sneak tastings a few days before but that doesn't rob me of the fun of that special evening). Best I ever did (for an article of course) was for my newspaper to book a round the world flight for me on that day so I could taste the wine as it was opened in France, Germany, India, Japan, California, New York and London. Exhausting but one of the most fun and probably funniest articles I have ever written.

Edited November 10, 2005 by Daniel Rogov (log)

[Rebel Rose]

Best I ever did (for an article of course) was for my newspaper to book a round the world flight for me on that day so I could taste the wine as it was opened in France, Germany, India, Japan, California, New York and London.  Exhausting but one of the most fun and probably funniest articles I have ever written.

You dog! How fun. And the link to this article would be?

[Daniel Rogov]

Mary, Hi....

You force me to at least partly date myself. That article was written in a day when computers were used primarily by the Pentagon and at MIT, before the term PC (both personal computer and political correctness) were dreamed of and before anyone other than a few science fiction writers had even dreamed of what would one day become the internet. Apologies.....the word "link" in those days referred primarily to a series of rings forming a chain.........

[jbonne]

Includes tasting notes on his top 11 Beaujolais.

←

thanks, Mary! note that's the top 11 Beaujolais i could source for tasting. i was unable to dig up any Thevenet or Guy Breton in time. others were ruled out (the Diochon, for instance) since they've been tasted before, and i kept a 2000 Morgon Cote du Py out of the tasting since it seemed too rare to lump in there.

these are the problems with Beaujolais-hunting in Seattle.

i am amazingly jealous of Daniel Rogov's magazine article ... though the fact they spent that much money to write about wine was a dead giveaway that it was a while ago. nowadays it's hard to get gas money to Walla Walla.

[Rebel Rose]

You never know on(less-y)alaska. Puyallups they might. Then you'd be skookumchuck.

[Rebel Rose]

Another article on Beaujolais, this time in The Japan Times, Apparently Asia is soaking up most of the Beaujolais overproduction, while maintaining it's sense of humor about BJ quality.

Although this meant that there was no longer any true race, as wholesalers received their supplies well beforehand, the Beaujolais marketing ninnies loved this concept so much that they, er, ran with it, regardless of it no longer having any basis in fact. Staged races verged on the ridiculous -- some even apparently involving elephants and hot-air balloons -- but the public absolutely drank it up, and global demand surged.

To keep up, Beaujolais growers reportedly pushed yields into the stratosphere. Of course, many vineyards couldn't completely ripen under such heavy fruit loads, but not to worry, chapitalization (a genteel term for adding sugar to the fermentation vat to goose the potential alcohol levels of underripe juice) is legal in all of France. Growers with a pass to the local beet sugar warehouse could keep pumping out volume without worrying about ripeness (c'est la vie). Quality, of course, took a commensurate hit, but with the "race" capturing public imagination, no one seemed to mind (sharp wits in the wine trade used to joke that the only characteristic aroma of Beaujolais Nouveau was the scent of cash flow).

[John Talbott]

I ended up having the GdB BN last night.

←

So what exactly is the release date all about? A bunch of us were dining Wednesday night with Specialist first class Felice and what should be lining the walls but about 40 cases of BN. Now, we didn't ask for any, but if we had????