WINE NOT

Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé!

Sorry I didn’t get to this until now. I have been too busy imbibing Beaujolais Nouveau. It is the third Thursday in November after all.

For the sober and uninformed or, ahem, boorish reader, the uncorking of this young wine at the stroke of midnight on the third Thursday of November has grown from a local phenomenon in the bars and bistros around Beaujolais and Lyon to a world-wide celebration. Nouveau is the first wine from the past year’s harvest and is meant to be drunk young, before the next year’s harvest, and meant to be drunk while better Beaujolais take their good old time aging. Picked quickly, rapidly fermented and speedily bottled, Beaujolais Nouveau has bided its time until TODAY!

(French law since the 50’s states that this is the earliest the Nouveau can be released. The regulation used to have November 15 as the date, but was changed to this third Thursday to allow the partying to readily flow into a weekend.) 

Yes, the uncorking of this young fruity wine on this date is cause for parties and fireworks in France and with the frivolous celebration now extending beyond France the “race” to export the Nouveau has led to gimmicky deliveries via the Concorde, by elephant or a hot air balloon. Yes, it may be all a marketing ploy, but Nouveau is best served slightly chilled, and gulped rather than critiqued; which lends itself to a festive air  and a gathering of friends whether self-proclaimed oenophiles or not.

So, if you are unable to fly into France for this silly wine event to take dinner at Paul Bocuse’s L’Auberge du Pont de Collonges in Lyon for some of his Nouvelle Cuisine, know you can simply pick up a bottle or three of Beaujolais Nouveau, flip open a pizza box with friends and party like it is well, the day the nouveau has arrived!!!

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