Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrive!

I believe we may have been sucked into a clever marketing gimmick, one aimed at convincing wine connoisseur wannabes that they are privy to some great secret that only true wine connoisseur's are privy to. Damn you, French winemakers and your clever marketing! You have tricked the world into believing that Georges Duboeuf's Beaujolais Nouveau is some great bottle of vino, when really it's just an average wine that doesn't age as well as it's friends. Still, I'll admit that all the hooplah surrounding it's annual release is kind of fun to be a part of.

Here's the skinny (don't worry, it's interesting even if you couldn't care less about wine):

Beaujolais Nouveau is made from the Gamay grapes, found in the Beaujolais region of France. The Beaujolais region is one of only two wine-growing regions in the world where picking the grapes by hand is MANDATORY! The only other region where hand harvesting is required by law is the Champagne region. Pretty neat, huh?! The other pretty neat part about Beaujolais Nouveau is that French law dictates that it not be released until the third Thursday of November. Ha! What a concept. Anywho, being that the wine is subject to such strict regulations, it's annual release date has turned into a worldwide event. Every year there is a "race" to see who will serve the new Nouveau (ha!) first. There are even parties held to celebrate it's release! Brightly colored posters declaring "Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrive!" ("The Beaujolais Nouveau has arrived!") appear in wine store windows, large displays of Dubeof's latest release occupy prime floor space, and customer's scramble to snatch up as many bottles as they can.

But what they don't tell you (and this is the real kicker), is that the Nouveau is the cheapest Beaujolais around, it typically comes from the worst grapes and Mr. Duboeuf, the largest maker of Beaujolais, is sitting pretty, selling his millions of bottles of cheap wine, when there are other, more worthy Beaujolais wine makers out there.

BOO to you, clever marketing schemes! I admit, I fell for your trickery, and I fell hard - we bought 3 bottles of the 2008 Nouveau this past weekend. I feel so ashamed.

Luckily, I am able to redeem myself somewhat - while I did enjoy last year's Nouveau and I will no doubt enjoy this year's, I am also an avid fan of other Beaujolais'. Yep, I also like the "real" stuff. So, please, don't hold it against me that I have 3 of these sitting in my wine rack. I'm still an equal-opportunity Beaujolais drinker!