Happy Beaujolais Nouveau Day, Everyone !!!

[joggerjayne]

The harvest is over. The grapes are picked. The wine will be ready for drinking next year. But the villagers are in the mood for a party. They want to drink the wine now! How can that be done?

The answer is – a wine produced by a fermentation process called “carbonic maceration”, or “whole-berry fermentation”.

Traditionally, winemaking begins by crushing the grapes. The juice of the grapes is mixed with the skins. For red wine, the skins are left in the pulp during fermentation, so that tannins (as well as the colour) are extracted from the grape skins. This tannin gives the wine structure and body. Yeast is added to create fermentation.

With carbonic maceration, the grapes are not crushed. Instead, the grapes are piled on top of each other inside a sealed container. Some of the grapes at the bottom are squashed by the weight of the grapes on top. This causes them to release carbon dioxide (don’t ask, unless you’re a bio-chemist!). The carbon dioxide permeates the grape skins and begins to stimulate natural fermentation at an intracellular level – inside the intact grapes. This means that the skins themselves are not involved in the fermentation process, so the tannins are not extracted from the skins. No artificial yeast is added. The ambient yeast present in the grape skins is sufficient.

The wine producers have to get this process juuuuust right! Producing Beaujolais Nouveau requires a high degree of precision and skill.

As the grapes continue to ferment, more carbon dioxide is released. Being denser than oxygen, the carbon dioxide pushes the oxygen out through any permeable surface. This creates a mostly anaerobic environment for the uncrushed grapes to continue fermenting, by carbonic maceration. Ethanol is produced as a natural by-product of the process.

The end result is a wine that is light in structure, and almost completely free from tannins (when the grape are subsequently pressed, the skins give colour, but not tannin). Because of the absence of these harsh tannins, which normally take time to soften, the wine can be drunk almost straight away.

However, since tannins are also the preservatives of wine, and contribute to wines maturing over time, Beaujolais Nouveau cannot be kept very long, and it does not change with age. Some wine drinkers continue to avoid Beaulolais Nouveau. The locals in Beaujolais (and Brighton), on the other hand, drink it in the streets, drink it with ice, out of a plastic cups, with straws, straight out of the bottle – however they like. For the wine growing community, it is a short-lived celebration.

So, enjoy it ABers ... drink Beaujolais Nouveau ... fave fun, be happy, allow yourselves to become cheerily intoxicated for a short and jolly time.

Love and jolliness to you all.

JJ x x x

[mushroom25]

a lesser know (in the UK) but equally nice experience is the release of "Touraine Primeur" -
http://www.touraineloirevalley.com/je-decouvre/a-l-affiche/touraine-primeur-un-jeune-premier-plein-de-qualites

the relevant night out in the city of Tours is awesome!

[aelmpvw]

//Beaujolais Nouveau cannot be kept very long//
this is true of any wine in my chateau

[joggerjayne]

aelmpvw's answer made me smile ... because it's such a good point.

And I love the little bit of trivia from mushroom. I'm going to mention that to so many people this afternoon. I think I have to give that a BA, just because of the amount that I'm going to borrow that information.

[NoMercy]

You can keep your Beauj Noov... I'll take the 8 bottles of Heidsieck Monopole Rosé I bought in July Sainsbury's the other day for a mere £13.50 a bottle (down from £30). Hic!

[ethandron]

I confess I've never actually had Beaujolais nooov.
Today however I've saved a considerable amount by spending a considerable amount at Majestic. They have 25% off prosecco, and we got a free bottle for spending over £50 on a voucher from British gas...didn't even know we were with them!
I love touraine mushroom, visited the region and bought a whole load from one of the makers in amboise. Sadly all gone now.

[sunny-dave]

Has anyone got any first hand (first palate?) experience of this years noov?

When it's good it can be very good, but when it's bad it's .... expensive mouthwash.

[EDDIE51]

I used to work in a Pub. The landlord went over to France to pick up the 'Noveau' he came back with 20 cases. It was vile, tasted like vinegar we could not sell it.
It just sat there until Christmas when I had the bright idea of turning it into Mulled Wine. That went down a bomb, the spice hid the horrible taste.
The landlord was so pleased he gave me a bonus ( no not a bottle of the wine!)