Tonight I stopped by my local wine shop to pick up a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau. If you've been following this blog from the beginning, you'll know that my interludes with Nouveau have not been pleasant, for any given vintage (I'm not a big fan), but nonetheless, because its Nouveau's time of year, I feel compelled to give you my opinion of this year's attempt.
As I mentioned before, Beaujolais Nouveau is released on the 3rd Thursday of November and is the first wine released every year. Its purpose is mainly to make the winery money and make it fast. Its inexpensive to produce and is released at a time when most wineries aren't able (or willing) to sell wines made from the current harvest yet. It goes through a less-desirable (cheaper) method of fermentation where the grapes are fermented (the process of converting sugar to alcohol) as whole berries (called carbonic maceration), as opposed to the traditional method of crushing the grapes and pressing the juice from the skin, and then fermenting the juice. It isn't stored in barrels, and is instead fermented in stainless steel tanks which are also much cheaper (barrels sell for $300-$700 a piece). The resulting wine is considered to be fruity, with very little structure (tannins), and is ready to drink immediately.
I had a little discussion with the shop owner when I purchased my bottle (the 2007 Beaujolais Nouveau from Dominique Piron) this evening, and he had a similar opinion of Beaujolais Nouveau. He recommended that I chill it to make it taste a little better, and then jokingly added that I could also toss in some cut fruit (sangria anyone?). I tought of my suggestion yesterday to chill wine you didn't like to make it taste a little better, and I had to chuckle a little about our common ideas. I took his advice (and mine) and chilled the wine for 30 minutes. The first sip went down okay. It was fruity (very tart raspberries), and simple (very little body), but it wasn't terrible. My husband got home shortly after my initial tasting and I had him sit down for a taste. I gave him a notepad and asked him to write down what he thought. After explaining that he was not even up to par as an average wine taster, he gave in to my pleading. "Harsh" and "Pedestrian" were the words that summed up his opinion. I would say those are some pretty impressive descriptions of a very unimpressive wine and I'd have to completely agree with him. After tasting the wine again when it had warmed up a few minutes, I didn't want another taste, ever. Maybe tomorrow I'll add some cut fruit.
At $13.99 a bottle you can definitely find a better wine (probably for even less). You'll have to go for last year's vintage (2006) but who cares? Probably only the region of Beaujolais.
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