Today is the day that "new" wines are released in France. These are wine that are young wines - this year’s vintage. These wines generally don’t age well, and should be drunk sooner rather than later. The great thing about these wines is that they’re very drinkable. Wine Sediments, a member site of the Well Fed Network, has articles from several contributors on new wines today. By French law, these wines are released at one minute past midnight on the third Thursday of November every year.
Beaujolais Nouveau is the best known of these wines and is a very approachable wine. Into Wine has several pages dedicated to this fun to drink wine, including this tidbit:
Beaujolais Nouveau owes its easy drinkability to a winemaking process called carbonic maceration—also called whole berry fermentation. This technique preserves the fresh, fruity quality of the wine, without extracting bitter tannins from the grape skins.
Why is this a big deal?
Mainly because I think it’s tough to find a wine that everyone will like when I have people over. This easy to drink wine is one that just about anyone can enjoy. it’s light, fruity and matches Thanksgiving Day food well, going well with turkey and showing hints of cranberry. Who doesn’t like cranberry at Thanksgiving?
This is the wine I go to when I have friends that say they don’t like red wines. It’s just so easy to drink! For Thanksgiving Day, we’ll probably have 4-5 bottles on hand… So another good thing about this wine is that it’s pretty inexpensive, too. It’s a nice balance between the body of red wines (without the tannins) and the lightness of white (without the bitterness).
I know some people think wine is pretentious, and I’m sorry they feel that way. I think that’s partly the wine industry’s fault, and there are vineyards that still push that attitude. Most of the better vineyards don’t, though, especially in the USA.
Go out soon (the wines won’t be in the stores long) and get a bottle of this stuff! You may find a new addition to your beverage menu to serve alongside Shiner Bock at your next barbecue!
This post is tagged
I think they should reserved an international wine day to celebrate wine drinking.
John, for all I know, there may be one. The 3rd Thursday in November is kind of close to it, but it’s only for one wine, really, or one type of wine. I’m always up for a reason to have a glass!