I have just got to get on top of all these international traditions, especially if they entail drinking copious amounts of red wine in the middle of a work week.
I consider myself somewhat of a world traveler and I have been to France, but somehow this annual drinking tradition has completely gone under the radar, or to use a better wine analogy–has slipped past my nose–which based on the size of my schnozzola is not a task without some level of difficulty.
Much has been written on the history of this event with perspectives in two camps: one promoting the fun nature of the tradition and the other pooh-poohing this as a marketing scheme to sell millions of gallons of cheap wine to uncultured drinkers.
“At one past midnight on the third Thursday of each November, from little villages and towns like Romanèche-Thorins, over a million cases of Beaujolais Nouveau begin their journey through a sleeping France to Paris for immediate shipment to all parts of the world. Banners proclaim the good news: Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé! “The New Beaujolais has arrived!” One of the most frivolous and animated rituals in the wine world has begun.”
Copious amounts indeed…we’re talking 70 million bottles a year.
“…the race from grape to glass may be silly, but half the fun is knowing that on the same night, in homes, cafes, restaurants, pubs, bars and bistros around the world, the same celebration is taking place.”
On the side of harping on the hype,
“Why it was decided to make the region’s humblest juice—a wine mainly borne of its worst vineyards, a wine barely removed from the fermentation vat, a wine that is nothing more than pleasantly tart barroom swill—its international standard bearer is a question that will undoubtedly puzzle marketing students for generations to come.
Apparently part of the fun and frivolous aspect is that the wine is sometimes delivered by non-traditional forms of courier, such as hot air balloon, fire truck, elephant, rickshaw and at one time, even the Concorde supersonic jetliner.
Part of the backstory to this wine enjoyed worldwide on the same day is that as few as two or three months ago the grapes for this wine were still on the vine.
So much for the whole aging in fancy oak barrels for years and years and then some more years in your cellar.
To call this a young wine is like saying a cow standing out in the pasture is rare beef.
Put another way, it is said that Beaujolais Nouveau “is as about as close to white wine as a red wine can get.”
I will confirm that by mentioning the first bottle (of four!) we drank this evening was such a light red color you could almost read the wine label through it.
I won’t say that was the case with the fourth bottle, but that may be based more on it being the fourth bottle than a significantly darker color.
The best quote on the subject may be,
it is a “festive wine to be gulped rather than sipped, enjoyed in high spirits rather than critiqued.”
The event got my wife and I out on a downtown patio on a warm, autumn day that turned into a starlit evening with enough cooling to hint of the coming change of season. We met new friends and pretended to compare the salient differences between the various bottles being enjoyed.
Not a bad way to spend a Thursday evening.
Now, what other worldwide drinking events are out there for me to discover?!?
