Looks like Georges Duboeuf, the king of Beaujolais, is in hot water with French wine authorities for blending bulk Beaujolais-Villages with more expensive Cru Beaujolais. If this is just an accident, as Duboeuf claims, it could mean some pretty cheap Beaujolais coming to market at low prices and a shortage of Cru Beaujolais from the 2004 vintage. None of the wines in question have been released yet, so no harm done to consumers. I’ll keep an eye on this story to see if this affected any wines in my cellar from Duboeuf in previous years.
Hi,
How many corks have you got from Duboeuf?
He trys for many years to convince poeple that the Beaujolais Nouveau is a great wine… 😉
Wilfried,
I agree that Nouveau is overrated, but a good excuse to celebrate the new vintage. We have a tradition of serving Nouveau with our turkey on Thanksgiving in November, and I avoid Duboeuf bottlings in favor of some smaller producers who make better wines. I am a fan of Duboeuf Cru Beaujolais, however, and have some Morgon and Moulin àVent in the cellar right now.
My wife and I have started the tradition of giving a bottle of Nouveau to our friends at Christmas time (I know, big spenders). But this year we include a tag with little tid bit of info about Beaujolais and the following text that I pulled of some Beaujolais web page, “The French believe that if you drink Beaujolais Nouveau in the year it’s bottled, you’ll have good luck the following year. So with that, drink this wine between now and the first of the year to ensure you have a very happy New Year!!!”
Last year we gave DuBoeuf, do you have other suggestions?
What a great tradition! If you are superstitious, legend (or is it just marketing) has it that you will give up all that good luck should you consume your Beaujolais Nouveau past the year it was made. For me, I like the simple, fresh flavors and generally stop drinking Nouveau past Thanksgiving, so it is a narrow window of 2-3 weeks for me. As far as producers, this will vary by wine merchant, but I’ve had good luck with Mommessin and Louis Tête. I think I will do a round-up of all the Nouveau I can find for a Winecast in November.