Who tried this years Beaujolais Nouveau? What did you think?

Question

Okay, to the person who said Beaujolais is not a great wine.....DDuuhh I work in a fine wine and spirit shop. NOT EVERY WINE HAS TO BE GREAT! Sometimes plonk is all you want.

Answer 1

Odd you should ask, since my wife and I opened up a bottle of Duboeuf Beaujolais Nouveau last night!

It was okay...a little tart, but I expected that.

Had a BIG problem opening it.
They are using plastic corks, nowadays.
It was too tough for my corkscrew, so I used the "Ah - So Extractor" (the kind with two prongs).
It was VERY difficult getting the prongs inside the bottle...to the point where I actually cracked the glass.
I ended up breaking off the neck and pouring the wine into a coffee filter to filter out any glass.

On a related note - I live in a very backward state (Oklahoma), when it comes to wine choices.
Granted, there are some good wine stores here, but they have limited shelf space.
To make matters worse, the state won't allow direct shipments.
Pity.
I've tasted a lot of great Beaujolais Nouveau wines from other French vineyards, when I've been visiting in other states.
But this year, all that was available in Oklahoma was Duboeuf.

Oh, well....

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

We're both fans of Nouveau, not to the exclusion of "good" wine but as a kind of charming oddity. We've sampled it every year since the early 1980s and look forward to each release.

The 2006 vintage (at least from Duboeuf, they're the only shipper we've seen here in Oregon) is controversial in this household: I enjoyed it, but my wife was disappointed.

Her observations were that it doesn't have the brightness she looks for in a Nouveau -- there's none of the petillance (that is, the barest hint of carbonation) or the tartness that is the typical signature of a Nouveau, and those are the things she looks forward to each November.

I, on the other hand, liked it more than she did -- it's more wine-like than other recent vintages have been, with something almost approaching a balanced fruit-forward character. It's still got the classic red-fruit undercurrents (would those be red currants? :-), but seems a bit softer and more mature.

So it comes down, as always with Nouveau, to your expectations. If you're expecting something like a Beaujolais Villages, you'll be disappointed because the technique of making Nouveau (carbonic maceration -- letting the grapes ferment whole, inside their skins) results in a very different flavor signature from traditional winemaking (crushing the grapes and fermenting the juice). And if you're expecting something like a traditional Nouveau, you may be disappointed because this vintage has less of what makes a typical Nouveau so different from "ordinary wine" -- less of that cranberry tartness and the borderline sparkle that makes it unique.

Where we finally agreed was that it's more expensive than it really warrants this year, even for a Nouveau fan -- at $10 retail (in Oregon), it's not as satisfying as it ought to be. At a retail of $6 or $7 it'd fit right in with modest Australian and South American wines, but it's half again that expensive.

In short, we won't be getting any more this year -- but we'll give it another go in 2007.

Answer 4

I love reading the answers to something everybody claims to be an expert after 2 classes of eunology. Me, I took the same 2 classes but decided I will never be as good as the experts, so I droped all the fancy wordings and just clasify wines as "Like/Don't like".

Anyway, on to the Beaujolais Nouveau. I would say that this wine is a bit "frutier" than last year, which to some makes it more enjoyable and to others less, and then go on to descibe the tastes, but frankly, I know less than you do.

I would only say that I always let the Nouveau rest a couple of weeks before opening (let it settle), and this year's vintage is definitively in my category of "Like" (and I usually prefer wines like the Malbecs or the Tempranillos over more "fruity" tastes).

My girlfriend that has absolutely no interest in wines thought it was "pretty cool for wine" (BTW as reference, she hates some the same Malbecs and Tempranillos I love).

Answer 5

My wife and I really look forward to the batch each year. It is not a snobby wine, so you don't have to feel guilty about drinking it with pop corn or pizza. Of course there are many labels and each is a little different. I am not a wine snob, but I am a patriotic snob so usual do not buy French wines. But I make an acception for Beaujolais Nouveau. It's a fun and frivoulous and easy to drink.

Answer 6

Ah, "young"? ... duh!
Nouveau, anyone?
This year's vintage (which I had about a week old, because the runners had trouble with the Atlantic) was pleasant ... if a tad too citrus for my taste. Prior years have had less acid, which may bode well for the more mature wines next year, but makes the Beaujolais a little tart.
I buy a bottle each year, not to have "fine wine" but simply to get a glimpse of how the crop generally fared this year. From what I can tell, the answer is "Pretty Good."
Cheers.

Answer 7

Beaujolais Nouveau for the uninitiated is a new wine that must be taken fresh. Many people wait for this treat every year, all over the world. It is a dry red wine and goes good with meats or heavy vegetable dishes. I even like it with pizza and Chinese if you can believe it.
I Cr 13;8a
12-6-6

Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas

Answer 8

I haven't had any Beaujolais Nouveau yet... my boyfriend and I got some cheap bottles early this year, but we haven't had the new vintage yet! I work for a wine distributor, so I don't go shopping for wine as often as I used to.

Answer 9

"Moondancer679" has made a good point, that a red wine, be it a young Beaujolais Nouveau or a "classic" red, can suffer a decrease in flavor/quality when it's jostled about in shipment. Enjoying our proximity to France here in south-central Germany, we saw numerous vineyards' products on the shelf that very FIRST release day (16 Nov., 2006). The quality of the first 2-3 bottles sampled was average to under-impressive--"berry jam" was one comment made. "Tart" said someone else. However, the same vineyards' BJ, now "settled" two weeks later, is already slightly improved.

Like any year's Calif. Chardonnay, Aussie Shiraz, or French Beaujolais Nouveau, the quality will vary according to the producing vineyard. But I agree this year's vintage, based on four vineyards' products sampled sofar, is "average" in quality. That said, it makes for a pleasant cocktail wine, to be enjoyed with light food-fare.

I would be interested in others' comments on particular vineyards/bottlers' products they have sampled, vs. a general comment about this year's vintage. Perhaps I should post that as a separate question, "WHICH of this year's Beaujolais Nouveau, from which bottler/vineyard, have you found most to your liking, and WHY?"

Answer 10

I haven't tried it this year, but I heard that the Beaujolais Nouveau Villages was the best (out of a mediocre crop) this year. I usually get a bottle or two when they are released here in California, but I missed it this year.