Is the Beaujolais Nouveau bad this year?

Question

To celebrate Thanksgiving this year I picked up a couple bottles of the Georges Duboeuf Nouveau Beaujolais to share with my family.

The first bottle was sour and didn't have an especially memorable taste. It didn't have any significant "legs", nor did it linger other than a fishy aftertaste.

We threw the second, unopened, bottle at the neighbor's cat. It missed kitty but it landed in the neighbor's yard. Perhaps they will drink it (poor neighbors!) or perhaps it will be buried by sediment to hide and ferment for a thousand years (poor archaeologists!).

Please share your experiences with this wine. If I'm buying from the wong chateau, I need to know. If their entire batch is bad, then please suggest a better source for this festive wine.

Update - I may owe Duboeuf an apology. I served the wine at room temperature, but other sources tell me the wine should be served cold, as it bring out the fruit flavors and inhibits the sourness. Did anybody who had this year's run enjoy it over ice or otherwise chilled?

Answer 1

I did not notice that it was particularly sour, but it was not good either.

Of course, beaujolais nouveau being sold so early, and at the same date whether it's ready or not, it is made hurriedly and not well, and is generally not good. This year's was, as usual too light and watery, and not even particularly fruity.

I personally drink it as an autumn ritual, much as the Americans indulge in the thanksgiving turkey. I don't think it's a matter of who made it. It's the area, and the fact it's planted in gamay, which makes for plentiful wine, but has been recognized as a bad variety to make good wine from for 5 centuries or more.

And you are right, beaujolais is too light to fully benefit from the room temperature treatment... and anyway, the "room temperature" thing was fixed in the 1700s, at a time when heating was much less efficient than nowadays, and room temperature meant 15-18° C. I'm not sureserving it cold really enhances the 'fruit' in the wine, but it helps, possibly because the cold numbs the mouth and masks all but the primary aromas, preventing the less pleasant side of the wine, or the absence of additional good sides, from showing up

Answer 2

The quality of beaujolais depends on the year. This year I don't think it was that great. The french don't really consider this to be one of the better wines, but more a wine linked to November & a kind of festival when the Beaujolais Nouveau comes out each year. There is a list of which years have been exceptional (there have been some really nice Beaujolais's in the past.

Answer 3

I have to agree, usually love to have a Beaujolais for Thanksgiving but this year it was vinegar. What a poor excuses for a release. I am glad I had some Redwood Creek Merlot as a back up plan. I don't even know if I will cook with it it was so blah. As you said no legs no depth not even a suitable plunk. Well there is always next year.

Answer 4

The bottle I tasted at Thanksgiving Dinner today was OK. No fantastic taste, but who drinks Beaujolais Noveau without expecting that it hasn't had time to develop? That's what the "Noveau" _means_, for pete's sake.

Answer 5

I don't know, but I was this close to buying a bottle of that for my Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. My boyfriend said that the bottle was ugly so I put it back and bought a riesling.

Thank God!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Answer 6

that is just a shame. last year it was a disappointment also. i would not know whom to purchase, instead a cote d ? or a spanish tempranillo, or a cal, zin? or some thing else......

Answer 7

king kong

Answer 8

It was horrible.