Vintage Story
Epistemological epiphany:
Life must be lived forwards,
but can only be understood backwards
Mercifully, life may be enjoyed sideways!
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Full Moon: November 5, 2006. Allen Dale Olson a/k/a the Pontiff of Palate, Story Inn’s Wine Connoisseur. Copyright 2006 Story Bed & Breakfast, LLP, d/b/a Story Inn, all rights reserved. |
Le BEAUJOLAIS EST ARRIVE!
At midnight on November 15, an army of vans, trucks, helicopters, and planes will take off from eastern France for all parts of the world laden with freshly-fermented Gamay grapes. From the Gamay comes Beaujolais, and on the third Thursday of every November, the New Beaujolais is released for sale and celebrations wherever wine lovers can gather. It hits Indiana mid-day or early evening on November 16. A keg of the new wine, one of only three allocated to the Hoosier state, will be tapped at the Story Inn at precisely 7:00 p.m. Friday, November 17. (You can still make your reservations.)
Since antiquity people drank wines directly from the containers in which they were transported – primarily because the wines from the previous harvest had either been consumed or gone bad. As modern technology took hold, laws and controls began to govern release dates for wines, especially in France where the discipline of wine production is rigorous. In 1951, the Beaujolais, mostly because of the efforts of Georges Dubouef, eased restrictions so the initial pressings could be rushed to market. Dubouef turned the release into a marketing dream, and we greet the new Beaujolais in London, Paris, New York, Tokyo, and Story with grand festivity.
The Gamay grape has not always enjoyed such celebrity. In the 14th century the monks in the Abbey of Cluny, the first to produce the great pinot noirs that inspired Miles in “Sideways,” saw the neighboring Gamay as a threat, and typical of church leaders responding to a threat, declared the grape “harmful to man and the cause of serous illness.” Never again would the Gamay grow in Burgundy.
But because the powerful giant Gargantua had strewn the hills adjoining Burgundy with great stones that furrowed the hills and created unique drainage conditions, the Gamay flourished and became the wine of choice of the working classes and the bars of Paris. Over the years, producers developed skills as well as grapes and began creating delicious wines, delicious enough to develop a ranking system unique to Beaujolais but similar to those of Bordeaux and Burgundy.
Today, there are ten cru classe (Classed Growths) in Beaujolais: Brouilly; Cote de Brouilly; Chirouble; Chenas; Fleurie; Julienas; St-Amour; Regnie; Morgon; and Moulin a Vent. These are fruity, relatively inexpensive, and somewhat age worthy wines. They are best slightly chilled and make a great drink with almost anything. Grapes that don’t quite measure up to the quality of a Classed Growth are bottled as Village Wines – Beaujolais-Villages – and sold for a few dollars less per bottle.
But November is about the New Beaujolais, the party wine of the world, a wine to be enjoyed in the here and now and certainly before the spring thaws turn it into a vinegary memory – a wine to enjoy, not discuss, to quaff and not dissect. So here’s to Beaujolais and the Gamay grape – and to those ancient men of the cloth who called it to our attention!
Vintage Story is an e-newsletter authored by Ole Olson and published by the Story Inn, and is available free of charge to all who appreciate good wine. Vintage Story is published at each full moon. The author and the Story Inn specifically authorize the republication, reprinting and circulation of any issue Vintage Story so long as due credit is given to the author and to the Story Inn (which holds the copyright).
If any newspaper or website desires to make use of any issue of Vintage Story, we do request that you notify us. Thanks, and here's to your health!
