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We complain about it every year.
But someone heard those complaints and is not only doing something about it, but doing something about it in high style.
Every year, we complain that no one holds a Beaujolais Nouveau Festival to celebrate the arrival of the very first wines of the vintage.
Beaujolais is a wonderful, great-with-food, good-value French red wine made from the gamay grape. The kind you’re most likely to see is called Beaujolais villages, and if you’re looking for a good Tuesday night red wine, it’s really hard to go wrong with this one.
But many of the grapes from the Beaujolais region never make it into bottles of Beaujolais, because they’re made into Beajolais nouveau, where the grapes are fermented as quickly as possible and the resulting fresh, fruity, juicy, fun wine is rushed to market. Under French law, it is released for sale on the third Thursday in November, which this year is Nov. 19.
When we lived in the Chicago suburbs, wine stores would stay open past midnight Wednesday night into Thursday morning so they could start selling nouveau. They would have tastings, food and parties.
But not here – until now.
Wednesday night, Wine Time at Jefferson Pointe will close at its usual 7 p.m. but then reopen shortly before midnight and stay open into Thursday morning. When the clock strikes 12, it will start pouring two different Beaujolais nouveaus for a free tasting. And just in case free wine isn’t enough to get you out at midnight on a school night, there will also be delicious turkey and fixings, as many people say nouveau is perfect for Thanksgiving.
Owner Jeff Armstrong said the nouveaus will be Joseph Drouhin Beaujolauis nouveau and the Domaine Dupeuble Beaujolauis nouveau, imported by Kermit Lynch. The Drouhin sells for $20 a bottle, and the Dupeuble for $24 – which is about double what most nouveau costs – but these are carefully selected wines you likely cannot find anywhere else in northeast Indiana. There are also generous case discounts.
Who would be crazy enough to go out at midnight on a weeknight to taste wine? Us. Or at least one of us, since we have young children with school in the morning. But we can confirm that at least Dan will be in attendance, happily tasting the very first wines of the vintage, and probably waxing poetic about wine if you let him. At the very least, he’ll be happy to sign whatever bottles of nouveau you buy.
Notably absent from Wine Time’s tasting lineup is the Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais nouveau, which is by far the most popular nouveau on the planet. So popular, that you’ll be able to buy it everywhere, which is why Armstrong is not carrying it – he specializes in wines you can’t get everywhere else.
There will be plenty of the George Duboeuf at Belmont – and at least one of its locations will have it before anyone else. Jeff Wolever said he’ll start selling it at the Lima Road store at 6 p.m. Wednesday.
“That’s midnight in France,” he said laughing. “I’m taking advantage of the time differential.”
The Lima Road store will have another surprise as well: last year’s nouveau. Normally, we react angrily to anyone still selling nouveau a year after its release because it is meant to be drunk so fresh and young that most experts say it should be gone by New Year’s. By Easter, it’s usually mostly vinegar. But Wolever said last year’s vintage – which was disappointing both in taste and in the huge price increase it came with – is drinking quite well right now, so Belmont will be doing side-by-side tastings of last year’s and this year’s vintages.
All of Belmont’s stores should be offering free tastings Thursday of this year’s vintage, he said. Cap N’ Cork and S&V Liquors will both be carrying the Duboeuf this year. Last year many stores didn’t carry it at all because of the price increase, but stores are telling us that this year’s price is back to normal.
Many people correctly point out that nouveau is all about hype. That’s true, but it’s fun hype. And it’s hype that reminds us that this is, indeed, a time to celebrate the harvest and that wine is, in fact, a farm product and this year’s wines will be different from every other year’s.
So whether you stop in to see Dan on Wednesday night or just grab a bottle on your way home some time, pick up a nouveau and take some time to think back over the summer and the joys and pains it brought, the challenges and achievements. Like the wine, you’ll never have another one exactly like it.
Cheers!
