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Home > Blogs > Uncorked > Archives > 2005 > November > 14 > Entry
The Delicious Madness that Is Nouveau Beaujolais
The crushed grapes have stopped bubbling in their vats. Their purplish juices have been slapped into bottles, still frothing. The tiny cylindrical piece of tree bark has been wedged into the bottle necks. The bottles have been loaded into boxes, the boxes stacked on airplanes, the airplanes piloted across the Atlantic.
All this just so you can …
…drink some vintage 2005 wine Thursday.
Yes, Nov. 17, 2005 — being the third Thursday in November – means it’s time to sample the Nouveau Beaujolais (and its imitators) for the annual autumn rite of allowing us to stain our teeth with the first wines of the vintage.
It’s a celebration of the harvest, a sort of thanksgiving the week before Thanksgiving.
The focus here is not on pretense, but on fun. Nouveaus, made from grapes that were still hanging on the vines a few weeks ago, are not wines to swirl and sniff and analyze. They’re meant to be swallowed.
So what’s the new vintage like? Well, we’ll let Georges Dubeouf, the tireless Beaujolais producer who helped create the worldwide nouveau phenomenon, tell us about the 2005 harvest in his neck of the French woods:
. Now that the grapes are fully ripe, they have exceeded even my expectations and have achieved a level of perfection rarely seen by a vigneron.
Naturally, perfect grapes are imperative to yield a perfect wine and, so far, 2005 is a marvelous vintage. Each day, it is showing more personality, richness, expression and grandeur – its future is full of promise. The main difference between this vintage and 2003 is that this wine doesn’t have a jammy edge to it; 2005 is fresher with more fruit, in short – it is perfectly balanced.
Beyond its impeccable appearance, the 2005 vintage also contains some of the most remarkable aromas. They breathe a refreshing complexity of black currant, blueberry, blackberry, black cherry and kirsch, intermingled with violet, cocoa, coffee, pepper, licorice and warm spices.
The taste of the 2005 Beaujolais Nouveau lives up to the standards set by its color and aroma. The palate gives the impression of intense concentration. This is a warm wine, bold and fleshy. It is harmonious, voluptuous and seductive. It is the sort of wine to help you rediscover the aromatic palate. The succulent fruits are held together by supple tannins that create the lavish expression of a high class wine. This is the mark of a formidable vintage that will be discussed for years to come.
On November 17th, 2005, you will discover all of this for yourself. I invite you to taste a Beaujolais Nouveau that will quickly write itself into the history of great vintages.
So there you have it, from the man they call the “King of Beaujolais.â€? Truth be told, there haven’t been too many vintages our good friend Georges couldn’t find SOMETHING nice to say about. But the 2005 vintage has been getting rave reviews in several wine-producing regions throughout France, so we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.
But lest you think it’s all about Dubeouf, here’s the list of nouveaus that Arrow wine, just as an example, is promising to offer for sampling Thursday:
2005 Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais-Nouveau 2005 Bouchard Pere & fils Beaujolais-Nouveau 2005 Mommesin Beaujolais-Nouveau 2005 Joseph Drouhin Beaujolais-Nouveau 2005 Beringer Nouveau (California)
Other shops are joining in the fun, some tasting all day, and others, including the Wine Works in Springfield, tasting after work (5:30-7:30 p.m.)
Leave your pretensions at home and come try some nouveaus on Thursday.
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Comments
By clarissa
November 16, 2005 8:54 PM | Link to this
Nice little wines to start the holiday season, inexpensive as you said, goes with turkey and all the fixins. When living in England it was an anticipated party across the Channel. Now those of us across the Pond can join the party. Ever notice how festive some of the bottles look?
By Uncorked
November 15, 2005 5:09 PM | Link to this
John: Nouveau is a pizza-and-burgers wine, but also seems to go well with the competing flavors of traditional Thanksgiving dinners. I’d submit that a great-tasting lineup of Beaujolais Nouveaus signals a great vintage in Beaujolais, but might not necessarily translate into a great vintage in other regions of France. Mark Fisher
By John C.
November 15, 2005 7:30 AM | Link to this
What food would you pair with Beaujolais-Nouveau, and does a great tasting Beaujolais-Nouveau indicate a great vintage?