“I love Beauj because it's GOOD, approachable, pleasant and, most importantly, crushable.”
- Craig
“I love Beaujolais because it is a wine made for enjoyment. Studying wine and breaking it down into a list of components, aromas and flavours has its value but Beaujolais demands more than that. It requires that you have fun, that you don’t just taste but that you drink it. There is no need for pretension, special glassware, or point scores. It's delicious out of a glass, mug, or straight from the bottle. Beaujolais more than any other wine is made to be shared and enjoyed. Glug it back, grab some more, and smile.”
- Taylor
“A few weeks ago, I went to bed without having drank quite enough Beaujolais. I dreamt that I was floating over central France, intemperately gobbling up clouds that tasted like strawberries but lacked the capacity to satiate. I awoke in a state of dejection and shame; Beaujolais is the most utilitarian of the world’s great red wines, but because it’s so easy to buy and to drink, it’s also easy to take for granted.
The Gamay grape grown in the granite soils of Beaujolais is one of the most synchronistic confluences of grape and place on the planet. The vinous result is an altruistically utilitarian red wine - one that isolates life’s hauntingly benign simplicities while banishing its debilitating complications. If Beaujolais were a food, it would certainly be pizza. In both cases, divinity is achievable, but its virtues are eclipsed by the more placid rewards of pure, sybaritic gratification.”
- Al
“Beaujolais is for drinking, more so than any other wine. The classic swirl, sniff, sip, swish and spit approach us pretentious wine "professionals" flaunt so regularly doesn't properly encapsulate the soul of the best Beaujolais. One must invoke the "gulp" or the "chug" technique to unveil the full beauty embedded within these captivating wines. And with price tags a fraction of their big brothers in northern Burgundy, this proper testing technique can be enjoyed while still making your mortgage payments.”
- Jim
“Beaujo sings a song of pure existential nature; challenges and ease, triumphs and mistakes. The most human of all wines, it is saint, penitent and sinner rolled into one, with no apologies for any of these.”
- Richard
Hey, Hey- don’t get me wrong... I have an immense fondness, nay, outright love for Beaujolais! I am a freakin’ John the B level evangelist for this region’s wine! But I have a very strong belief that the only way Beaujolais Nouveau tastes good is on a long, drunken stroll through the streets, bistros and bouchons of Lyon on a chilly November night.
Air-freighted to Calgary for the third Thursday of November, one pays the exorbitant shipping costs on a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau (a very simple wine), its price tag inflated by it’s means of transport - far beyond the quality of the juice in the bottle. Jet fuel is not what I want to pay for when enjoying my Beaujolais!
C’mon! Just plan a trip to Lyon around the time of the Nouveau, and go on a bistro-crawl and sample this frisky newborn wine mere kilometres from its place of birth! It is, after all, a celebration of the recent harvest sur place. I don’t like air-freighted asparagus any more than sky-borne wine. I can dress like I’m going to the Carnival in Venice or Rio right here in Calgary, but… something is missing; context!!
There’s no loss of the hedonistic personality of Beaujolais in these more serious and qualitative wines - it’s just that there’s more to this pleasure than wham-bam, fun fruitiness…you will still be aroused by the wine but you also want to have a conversation with it.
(November 8th, 2019)