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Bojo nuvo: Just say no to the nay-sayers.
I don’t get hating on Beaujolais Nouveau. The only thing wrong is that the hype leads too many people to overlook Beaujolais not so nouveau. That’s far better stuff aged and released throughout the year with much less fuss but still bargain prices. For me Beaujolais is the next best thing to Burgundy, or looking south, the next best thing to the northern Rhone.
But about that nouveau. It’s light, bright, and affordable. It’s an easy going everyday red and the hullabaloo is popular fun, which is probably why it appalls the snobs and stiffs. When the wine’s great – 2003 and 2005 – hurrah; when it’s not I still get a kick out of the label competition.
2009 Mommessin Beaujolais Nouveau has arrived and is 7.99 at B-21
The hype may have lost cachet now that the Nouveau shows up in supermarkets from here to Tokyo but the excitement has legitimate roots. You can blame the modern hubbub on Mad Men of the French and English variety. Long before that, the good people of Lyons, home of coq au vin, pike quenelles, and Paul Bocuse loved the Gamay so much they hauled barrels from Beaujolais to their bouchons as soon as they could every fall. Four million Lyonnais can’t be wrong.
Not to mention that it’s the first taste of the 2009 vintage, which already has winemakers dancing.
My latest personal report from France was on Burgundy from my friend Aleth Voraick. She divides her time between St. Petersburg and the family’s Michel Voarick vineyards on the hills above Aloxe Corton on the southern end of the Cote de Beaune.
Just back from the harvest, she says the berries are perfect, a little small, but with deep color. The braintrust at Louis Latour agrees, noting that the weather and growth of the grapes this year tracks exactly the great vintages of 1929 and 1959.
So I’m happy to pop $8 on Nouveaux this year. Besides checking up on our friend Georges Duboeuf, the patron saint of Beaujolais, I’m looking forward to the 2009 Bouchard and Mommessin we will have in house.
After the hullabaloo and the rest of the holidays, we’ll go back to Beaujolais for the best of the villages.
