Le Beaujolais Nouveau est Arrivé

Yes, folks, it's that time of year, the time to drink wine and celebrate. How is this different than any other time? Because it's Nov. 15th, of course, or because, as a Frenchie may say, "le Beaujolais nouveau est arrivé!" (or in other words, the wine, Beaujoulais (bo- zho-lay) nouveau (nu-vo), has arrived.....or more or less has been released in stores in restaurants, a thing that apparently only happens once a year) And people celebrate as if this is the one time wine is available to the world! I remember seeing glimpse of the hype last year, but didn't think much about it. Last night, the night of the release, Adam and I met up with a friend, totally forgetting this magical holiday. We wandered around looking for a place to grab a drink and stumbled upon a random restaurant full of people, balloons, wine, and a live band attempting to play American music. I think we heard everything from the Beatles and Pearl Jam, to REM and Oasis with that slight bit of 'off-ness' you may get from any foreigner trying to sing English word-for-word. Power to them, but despite the liveliness, the whole atmosphere was certainly an odd mix.

Our friend is American who knows a tad more of the French culture, but even she claimed (along with the French she's asked) that no one really knows why this thing is so hyped. I've never tried the wine myself, so I thought maybe this is something similar to ice wine, something where the grapes have to be harvested at a certain time, say, after a first frost, to produce a super sweet drink or something just as memorable? But she said, no, it's not really like that. It's kinda like, uh, wine? We three shared a bottle, and it was good, but nothing crazy memorable (well, NOW it is after all the balloons and REM associated with it), but this had me really curious; why all the hype?

Looking into the subject a bit, I learned that Beaujolais Nouveau is a type of Beaujolais wine which is bottled only 6-8 weeks after harvest, making it a very simple, tasty, fruity young wine. Law enforces that the grapes be picked by hand and fermented in a way that restricts the bitter tannins from the skins to infiltrate the brew, so it really is a nice light red. Storing it for long periods of time won't enhance it's flavor, so when it arrives, it should be drank immediately!  ha

The creation of this form of Beaujolais' younger sibling had originally been celebrated on a more local level signifying the end of harvest in that region, but after WWII, some had the idea to market the stuff to clear our lots of ordinary wine at a profit and increase cash flow around harvest time. Vintners came racing to the big cities to hype up their creation and by the 70s it became a national holiday of sorts. The release date was then officially set to the third Thursday of November, and slowly creeped out to neighboring Europe, North America and, and now Asia.

This works well for us in the states as Beaujolais Nouveau has been cited as the Thanksgiving wine of choice. Coincidence?  I think not. I think the global marketing team knew exactly what they were doing.

November 15th is also my Grandpa's birthday. Talking to him yesterday, I asked if he was doing anything special, and he said, "...well, not much. I think your aunt might be coming over for a glass of wine." That sounds nice, I said, not yet connecting the two events, and I told him we'd be sure to have a glass for him as well that evening. Well cheers to you grandpa, not only did we have a glass, but the rest of the world was celebrating as well....Especially all these guys below....

Shanghai got it right!

 Beaujolais Nouveau

10 Fascinating Facts about Beaujolais Nouveau

LOST

So we did it. Last Friday. 6 seasons of LOST finished in under 5 months. I don't know if that's impressive or just plain pathetic, but we did it. It was always one of those shows we've wanted to watch, but never wanted to get into it midway. And having since arrived in Paris, time just so happened to open up with the opportunity to lose ourselves in this ever-so addicting series. I don't know how all you did it watching it week by week being held in suspense for over 6 years. Excruciating! 

In following these characters for somewhere around 120 hours, (yeah, that does sound pathetic), I almost felt as if we were leading somewhat parallel lives. I mean, here we are in France, coming here not knowing anyone, lost a bit from reality and all that's familiar, with only each other. And oh yeah, there's those 'Others' (the French), too. You never know if they're up to no good or actually on your side ; ) At least here, there's not people dying all over the place and polar bears running around.....but it got us thinking... if only we could find some of that Dharma Initiative Merlot for our wedding.....

A Perfectly French Day Indeed

Last weekend, Adam and I combined another language exchange meet-up with wine tasting. Having gone to the 'Friends-of-Wine' meet-up just a few days prior, we were informed and given tickets to this huge expo happening at the edge of town where hundreds of independent vintners come to showcase their local 'brews.' We asked Cécile, our new French friend, if she'd like to join.

We first met in a neighboring cafe to talk a bit of french before battling the crowds, and conversation quickly turned towards the recent attacks in Toulouse. This hit close to home with Cécile considering she is a tried and true Toulousian with a mother's who's a school teacher. Ironically, talking with one of the local vintners later that day, we found out that this woman's daughter is a nurse who was there to stitch up one of the militia men who was shot. It's a crazy small world, indeed, and this topic is on everyone's mind right now, especially since it's so close to election time. Apparently the train bombings in Madrid that happened back in 2004 (yep, last time I was here) happened days before the election and completely changed its outcome. France is wondering if it will do the same for them as well.

But anyways, back to happier thoughts....As we sipped our coffees, one of Cécile's friend, Charles, decided to join... So now were were a happy group of four. And more good practice for Adam and I as we tried to decipher the discussions between those two. Mind you, both are simply stellar in their English, and it always surprises me just how much they know. When Charles can spit out quotes from 'Full Metal Jacket', you know he's paid a bit of attention to American culture. 

We all then headed to the expo and each received a glass for tasting. We then started wandering down the aisles trying to determine where to stop, but there was honestly soooo many vendors (maybe around 500?) and so many different regions and wine varieties that it was a bit intimidating and overwhelming. It was good to have our Frenchies with us to guide us a bit (we decided to stick to wines made in the south near Toulouse), but I think even they were a bit uncertain of how to approach all this. After a couple of hours of pushing through more and more people, we decided to ditch this, and get outside to enjoy the warm summery day. 

Cécile explains the locations of the regions to us.

Be safe, kids. Breathalyze before driving ; )

Too early to really go home and too early to really settle in at a restaurant for grub, we (minus Charles) headed towards the Canal St. Martin near Republic. (If any of you have ever seen 'Amelie,' it's where she goes to skip stones). The banks were PACKED with hundreds of Parisians (unlike this photo I yanked) eating, drinking, and simply enjoying life; we decided to do the same. We bought some food and bubbly for a picnic, reused our tasting glasses, and hung out until after sundown stumbling through conversation both in French and English about life, love, and plans for the future. Definitely a superb French day, indeed.

Alsace Wine Route

 Wow, this seems like forever ago with all that’s been going on lately. Just a quick relapse for ya. After night of surviving the forest, we headed east to the Alsace Wine Route that stretches from Marlenheim near Strasbourg to Thann near Mulhouse. This 170km of windy roads and roundabouts are pure heaven for any wine lover as it’s packed with gorgeous countryside, vineyards, wineries, tasting cavs, and medieval villages…all sandwiched between the Vosges mountains and the Rhine. It is definitely recommended to have your own car for this kind of trip. The interesting part was the tasting aspect. Some of these ‘Cavs’ or tasting rooms were classy established places while others were in some guy’s basement. A few times we turned around and got right back in our car because it literally seemed we were supposed to ring some guys doorbell and go in and sit with grandma in their living room. We had no idea how this all worked. So yes, there are literally 100s of places along the road you can stop and have a free taste or ten. The portions that were given also caught us by surprise, for some places were giving us half glasses for each taste. So unlike our Michigan bus tour where the sommeliers are just plain stingy. Can’t blame them, I guess, when they have huge busloads all coming in at once. Noticing this, we decided it best to at least buy one bottle wherever we stopped, which actually to our surprise, didn’t really break the bank. Of course, you could buy super fancy stuff, but they also had typical wines that were affordable and probably tasted just as good as anything fancy. Very comparable to Trader Joe’s, we’ll say. The best part, though, was the ability to be able to practice some French. A lot of the people serving us didn’t speak English in the first place, so it was great to learn some new vocab and gain a bit more confidence for the next place we stopped. No one ever looked annoyed with us, and usually helped us stumble through a description of what we wanted to taste. I told Adam that this was how they needed to teach French classes; learn a few words, then go out, taste some wines, loosen us, and use that vocab!