Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivè is a phrase heard around the world. The third Thursday of November marks the worldwide release of the Beaujolais Nouveau. The tradition was not always as widespread. In the early 1900’s Beaujolais Nouveau was an inexpensive wine served out of barrels at restaurants and cafes in Lyon, eight weeks after the harvest. The tradition followed into Paris in the 1920’s and remained a French tradition for years. The wine was never bottled.
In the mid 1900’s, the wine became well known and began to be bottled as it started its travels around the world. Marketing and advertising giants took this wine to a new level and now the signs awaiting the arrival of the recently bottled Beaujolais Nouveau are seen around liquor stores, restaurants, and cafes worldwide.
The first Thanksgiving was a celebration in Plymouth Massachusetts of the harvest and of the coming together of the British and the natives to prepare the feast that featured wild fowl and other local products flavored with spices and dried fruits. This 1621 tradition spread throughout the rest of the United States in 1821 when President Abraham Lincoln made the last Thursday of the month the national day for Thanksgiving. Congress decided to make this tradition official in 1941 and since then it has been marketed worldwide.
In Melanie Dunea’s My Last Supper, Jacques Pepin mentions many of the dishes he would have as part of his last meal on earth. He was also asked “What would you drink with your meal?” The first one of the beverages he mentions is “…bottles and bottles of fresh nouveau Beaujolais.”
Last year, around this time, I decided to find out that it was about the Beaujolais that would be the perfect match to his last meal. I interviewed him over the telephone to find out why, with the finest wines of the world at his reach, he picks the simple, inexpensive wine? It is about “remembering of things past, ” said Pepin. Originally from Lyon, Pepin grew up surrounded with the traditions and celebrations of the wine. It brings him back to his home and the good memories.
Also, he said, he enjoys extraordinary wines, but Beaujolais is his every day drinking wine. It is a wine , said Pepin, that is “…young, its, unpretentious, its fruity, it goes well with food, so for me the perfect wine you don’t have to analyze it, you don’t have to torture yourself in tasting it, you know?”
There are foods that are commonly served during the release of the Beaujolais. Generally in Lyon the wine is served with charcuterie, lots of meat like sausage and pigs feet. One of the things Pepin likes the most about this wine and the food that is normally served with it is that it breaks the rules generally followed by culinarians and sommeliers. It is, as he calls it, “unconventional.” The red wine is served chilled and it is a low tannin wine that is paired with meats, which are generally served with high tannin red wines. One of the most traditional dishes is a dandelion salad served on a warm plate with pigs feet, herring filet, and hard boiled eggs with hot lard fat on the salad, which makes the greens wilt. The pairing is a hot salad and a cold red wine.
Just like the Thanksgiving celebration, the Beaujolais celebration is so important in France, there is a festival held in the region for its celebration. Also, all of the cafes and restaurants in the areas continue the old tradition of keeping it in the barrels and serving it into pitchers to bring to the table. Originally only celebrated in Lyon, now all of France partakes of this celebration, making it seem more like a national holiday.
The evolution of the Thanksgiving meal has made turkey the central part of the meal with many vegetable side dishes, many of which are flavored with spices and fruit. Beaujolais generally tends to have berry and spice undertones, which resembles the flavorings used in preparation of the typical modern Thanksgiving meal. In addition, because it is a wine that is typically paired with meat items, it is a good companion to the turkey dinner. Because it is served chilled and it is low in tannin, the wine is lighter in texture which serves as refreshing addition to a meal that tends to be heavy.
Beaujolais and Thanksgiving have a lot in common. They started as local celebrations of the harvest, spread throughout the rest of the country, were marketed and are now celebrated around the world. All of this took place around the same time in history. In addition, because of the unconventional use of the wine, the time of year when both are celebrated, and the flavors that tend to meld so well together, Beaujolais Nouveau is the perfect pairing to the Thanksgiving meal.
