Posted by unregistered user at 11/22/07 12:15 p.m.

Hey, blogmistress! What do you think of this year's BN? So far I have only tried the regular Duboeuf bottling. Local wine buyer doesn't like it and he floor stacked it away from his favorites (shades of the MSN article!)

I - on the other hand - LIKE IT! It is really big and structured (well, for a BN anyway). Not the thin and juicy-fruity beverage that last vintage gave us. OK so it doesn't have a lot of carbonic maceration character - IMO that smells like rot anyway.

I have three bottles ready for our dinner today, with a little Pinot in reserve if we plow through the first bottles like sailors when the sun is over the yardarm. No Rose and no Riesling or other Alsatian delights this year at all. Just Beaujolais Noveau.

Posted by steve.body at 11/26/07 7:41 p.m.

It's a little telling - and quite a shame - that this wonderful grape, Gamay, is so badly represented in this country by Beaujolais Nouveau, which is to finer cru Beaujolais what a Honda Civic is to a Maserati. You'll notice that the really great Beaujolais producers - Guy Breton, Marcel LaPierre, Jean-Paul Thevenet, Gilles Aujogues, Sylvain Rosier, etc. - produce no Beaujolais Nouveau. It's only the giant negociants - DoBoeuf, Jadot, Potelle, Bouchard, Drouhin, Mommesin, and Barton & Guestier, as well as American pretenders like Beringer - are the ones churning out the Nouveau. This is not to disparage the wine, which is pleasant and easy-drinking and a great pairing for a light lunch, but it is a flat-out lament that the Nouveau is so fawned over and celebrated that HUNDREDS of beautiful, finely-crafted wines go completely unremarked by people who would probably really enjoy them. In our shop, we actively promote Beaujolais, as well as that other much put-upon light red, Valpolicella. In neither case is the simple, light-bodied table wine anything like the whole story. I'd love to see your blog go into depth about some of the beautiful, full-bodied Morgons or the lovely, rose-scented Moulin a Vents. Promoting Nouveau only does a great disservice to a very interesting and affordable wine region.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/4/08 12:43 p.m.

Oh Steve-baby! Some of who enjoy Nouveau also cellar Morgons and Moulin-au-Vents (it helps for me to have Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant within striking distance).

I salute you for promoting the noble Beaujolais in your shop, and hope that our blogmistress will take up your challenge to do a bit here in her column on a representative sampling. Maybe you could send her some bottles?

But as to why these great wines are overlooked - IMO it is because the producers SUCK at marketing. Hell the producers farther north in the Cote d'Or suck at marketing, and they have relatively larger brand recognition going for them here in the States. I have acquaintances from the region who would kill to be able to move some product here in the US but are clueless as to how to begin. Sort of like me wishing I could sell into China.

And promoting Nouveau no more does a disservice to the higher-end Beaujolais than promoting cheap Napa Chardonnay does to the high-end Cabernets the region is so much better at. This is a first rule of marketing. The Nouveau acts a a gateway drug to the harder stuff.

Posted by Emily Resling at 1/5/08 11:05 a.m.

Precisely. Love ya.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/7/08 5:08 p.m.

I agree with Steve, and am flabbergasted that many BNs this year are priced higher than not only BJ Villages but some of the Grand Crus as well! Ridiculous. I'm boycotting
the Nouveaus out of principle as well as price. Give me a bottle of Brouilly any day.