Dining with Asian Food and Wine (November 2022)
Dining with Asian Food and Wine (November 2022)
Dining with Asian Food and Wine
November 2022: Beaujolais Day
by
Ronald Jan, M.D.
Beaujolais Day is celebrated on the 3rd Thursday in November every year. When Philip, The Bold of France outlawed the Gamay grape, the southern-most part of Burgundy, Beaujolais defiantly grew the Gamay Grape. And following harvest winemakers would celebrate the harvest by serving a “party wine.” Made in a different manner (“carbonic maceration”) this Gamay is light, fruity and very low in alcohol. This wine was not designed to be big, bold and complex. It is not designed to be aged in the bottle for 5,10,15 years or longer. The Gamay Beaujolais Nouveau was made to be consumed immediately to celebrate the harvest. In fact, many people feel that after 1 or 2 months following release to the consumer the wine falls off rapidly in aromas and flavors. (Photo credit https://www.winetourism.com/wine-region/beaujolais/)
And so, the 2022 vintage of this wine is made to be consumed in the latter part of November, “Beaujolais Day,” the 3rd Thursday in November (this year 17 November 2022) when the wine bottle may be opened at 12:01 a.m.
[Photo credit :https://www.wine.com/product/duboeuf-beaujolais-nouveau-2022/1098351#]
[This year’s Beaujolais nouveau will not be available until 17 November 2022]
This celebration of the grape harvest is not new. In his interview with Georges Duboeuf, Anthony Rose noted that the celebration of the first fruits of the new vintage began “long before the [World War II] war” seeing the “new vintage Beaujolais had flowed regularly into the cafes of Lyon and St. Etienne.”
Georges Duboeuf, a vintner in Beaujolais was a marketing genius and had a flair for the dramatic. Seeing Alexis Lichine’s exhibition “De la Vigne et du Vin” Georges Duboeuf promoted the first “Taste d’Or” in Beaujolais linking film stars, sports heroes, chefs and artists. Then he saw a sign in a Paris bistro, “le beaujolais nouveau est arrive,” and he organized the first race from Beaujolais to Paris to get the first bottle of Beaujolais’s first wine of the vintage to Paris. In 1970 this race expanded to London. Who was going to be the first to bring the Beaujolais nouveau to London? This ingenious marketing with attention to rigorous monitoring of the wine and extreme dedication to hygiene by Georges Duboeuf earned him tremendous respect and the title, “king” or “pope” of Beaujolais.
There are wine “experts” who might decry this “party wine” saying that it “lacks depth, body, complexity and tertiary notes that would allow it to age well in the bottle.” All this may be true but made in this manner this wine was intended to be consumed young. This light, fruity wine is fresh and should be served lightly chilled with foods that are also light in flavors such as a stir-fry chicken.
[Photo credit: https://www.yummly.com/recipe/Stir-fried-Honey-Chicken-1856754]
Or here in the U.S.A. the following Thursday in November (the 4th Thursday) is Thanksgiving Day and one might serve this Beaujolais Nouveau with the Turkey bringing additional fruit to the cranberry and Turkey on the table.
[Photo credit: https://www.eater.com/2018/11/15/18096645/thanksgiving-2018-smaller-turkeys-trend-millennials]
To be fair to the Gamay Grape I should say that this grape can yield excellent wines with complexity, capable of ageing when made in more traditional ways of fermenting with yeast and ageing in oak barrels then developing tertiary notes in the bottle as seen in Beaujolais Village or the famed Beaujolais Cru. But, the Beaujolais Nouveau remains a wine to celebrate the harvest.
So, let’s have a party!
About the author: Dr. Ronald G. Jan who specializes in Vascular Surgery is a Clinical Professor of Surgery at the University of California at Davis School of Medicine. As a hobby, he holds WSET level 3 certification in wines and has been writing and publishing wine commentaries attracting lots of readers.
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