Beaujolais Nouveau is Here! More Symbolic Than You Think!

Last night was the big and I mean  big celebration throughout France to celebrate the arrival of Beaujolais Nouveau.  The crescendo has been building for over a week or so, with just about every wine store, brasserie or restaurant advertising their Beaujolais party. Besides the enjoyment of tasting the new wine, I find a symbolic meaning in it all that I will explain.

A river of Beaujolais literally flowed practically all night in Paris, as long as there were consumers still able to stand.  You can always tell who has been imbibing because of the purple stained lips.  The Gamay grape is the star here and the wine is just a baby so to speak, having never been really aged. Aficionados prefer their’s unfiltered.

I ended up on Rue Daguerre, the wonderful food street of the 14 th arrondissement at a wine merchant, who had a jazz quartet playing, and several bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau opened for tasting in his tiny shop. In a few minutes it was a squeeze getting to the generously offered slabs of delicious wild boar terrine , pork rillettes and  cantal cheese.

Rue Daguerre is always jammed full of shoppers and has its own party like flavor everyday.  Fruit and vegetable sellers vying against their competitors are always yelling “framboises, trois pour cinq” or something similar.  The fish monger likewise is crying out his special of the day. Whiffs of hundreds of cheeses swirl around the air.   All in all it is a cacophony of sounds and smells mixed in with the ever-present whines of infants in their strollers pushed by  weary parents.

There are four wine shops on the street, each with their own table in front offering free degustations of the new wine.  I often hear a lot of people put down Beaujolais Nouveau, which I feel is totally uncalled for. It should be  tasted on its own merits as a vin primeur, or newly fermented wine, that has not been aged. Do not even try to measure it  to other  Beaujolais wines who have the advantage of aging in barrels to develop structure, complexity and various flavors of their origins called terroir in French.

The Beaujolais wine district is just south of Burgundy and extends down to  France’s 3rd largest city Lyon.  It is said that there are tree rivers flowing through Lyon: The Saône, the Rhone and Beaujolais!  There are 12 Beaujolais AOC’s or appellation d’origine controlee, with adorable names of villages such as  Fleurie, Chenas, Moulin a Vent and Saint Amour.   The Lyonnais are fiersely proud of their gastronomy and their wine.

All Beaujolais, new, or not must be made of the Gamay grape.    Majority of the wine is red, but a few vintners offer a white version too.   An interesting thing about the vinification of nouveau Beaujolais is that it is done by carbonic maceration.  Most all wine grapes are crushed before the resulting juice goes on to fermentation, but with this method the grapes are left whole and carbonic gas and yeasts are used to cause the juice inside the grapes to begin the fermentation intracellular.

The newly fermented Beaujolais has a bouquet of reminiscent of bananas, raspberry, and bon bon’s with yeasty overtones. The better and more expensive ones are usually unfiltered without chapitalization, or addition of sugar. The one I bought was crisp and upfront as any toddler with rather untamed tannins that gave it fullness and character.  Once in the bottle, you do not age Beaujolais Nouveau.  It is made to drink now!

Celebrating Beaujolais Nouveau is really celebrating the new wine of this year’s harvest which is full of symbolism to me.  Wine has traditionally been used sacramentally in both Judaic and Christian liturgy.   So what a wonderful symbolism of newness or new beginnings, hopes and ideas does this new wine bring to us.

In the Christian gospel of Mathew, Jesus talks of not putting new wine in old wine skins, and that is something to contemplate today.  My own analogy and interpretation would be that routines ways of doing and thinking need to be put aside sometimes to let fresh waves of thoughts and ideas creep in.

Keeping ourselves in a safe cocoon of routine can lead to stagnation that stifles growth.  As the farmer plows and turns over the soil to make way for the next planting of seeds, we too need to shake things up a bit in our everyday life, so as to be more fertile and open towards seeing things in a different light.

So here’s to Beaujolais Nouveau, that it reminds us of freshness and new beginnings are good for the soul.  Since grapes will only grow on new vines, we too need to put out new shoots to flower and  fruit in the future.