Beaujolais nouveau san francisco 2017

Simply stated, these are delicious, fruit-forward wines to enjoy! Beaujolais achieves its own identity with variations on style of one grape, Gamay.

Four styles of Beaujolais wines exist. The simplest, and one that has regrettably given the region a subpar reputation, is Beaujolais Nouveau. This is the Beaujolais wine that is made using carbonic maceration a quick fermentation that results in sweet aromas and is released on the third Thursday of November in the same year as harvest.

It's meant to drink young and is flirty, fruity and fun. The rest of Beaujolais is where the serious wines are found. Aside from the wines simply labelled, Beaujolais, there are the Beaujolais-Villages wines, which must come from the hilly northern part of the region, and offer reasonable values with some gems among them.

Any cru Beajolais will have its commune name prominent on the label. Delightfully playful, but also capable of impressive gravitas, Gamay is responsible for juicy, berry-packed wines. The Villages and Crus are highly ranked grape growing communes whose wines are capable of improving with age whereas Nouveau, released two months after harvest, is intended for immediate consumption.

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Offer valid subject to state law limitations. Search for " ". This is catnip to winegeeks! Beaujolais is mostly about red wine from Gamay.

Allowing the skins to macerate in these liquids means any tannin in the skins can soak into the final wine, where they give structure. In Beaujolais, par contre , there is a historical practice of dropping whole bunches of grapes into a vat to begin fermenting with all the juice still inside each grape.

Of course, Beaujolais also has plenty of winemakers who work in the Burgundian style, as well as a myriad versions of the carbonic maceration. All this variety, again, makes for fascinating as well as delicious drinking. Experimentation Land in Burgundy is about as expensive as it gets, the culture is very traditional, and the growing and marketing pressures are intense.

Not surprisingly, it is a land of tradition first and experimentation only a very distant second. Beaujolais is different. It has been as good a value as you could find in French vineyard land. The economic and growing pressures are not quite the same. Young and open-minded growers have established themselves and made it into a hotbed of experimentation.

One of our favorite up and coming growers released his first commercial vintage when he was 12! Is Beaujolais New? Beaujolais Vintages: Is Beaujolais vintage sensitive? Beaujolais is vintage sensitive -- after all it is from a continental climate where the weather can vary a lot from year to year.

But the combination of terroir and grape makes the region less sensitive than , for instance, Burgundy. Some years, the weather makes for a bigger harvest; some years, a smaller one. Some years are hotter, or drier and make for bigger, more powerful wines; some years are cool and make for more lithe, tenser wines.

In fact, all of the recent vintages you are likely to find in a neighborhood shop or restaurant were good, and some of them were truly great. On the other hand, they are all different and some will appeal more to certain palates than others.

Here are brief notes on recent vintages that you may still find around: - Great. It was a hot year but the wines somehow have ended up with beautiful freshness as well as the kind of gorgeous fruit that made us fall in love with Beaujolais in the first place. Good for Beaujolais aficionados and newbies alike. But what there was tended to have exuberant fruit. Bad hail in the north, especially in the Crus, reduced yields, but in the south good growers made very tasty, if not profound, wines.

The fruit tends to be a little darker than usual and alcohol levels a touch higher. But the wines maintained freshness and the wines were very, very popular. A particularly good year for newcomers to Beaujolais who are more accustomed to California or warm climate wines. This was the kind of vintage we love at Flatiron: beautifully-drawn, precise fruit, vibrant, chiseled structures and clear terroir signatures. A wonderful introduction to Beaujolais for Burgundy refugees and very much a classic vintage for dyed-in-the-wool Beaujolais fans.

It depends on the Beaujolais! Our first caveat for serving wines is always the same: most Americans serve their white wines too cold and their red wines too hot. This definitely applies to Beaujolais. But our second caveat is even more important: start with the wine a little cooler than you probably want it and experiment to see where, as it warms up, you like it best.

One thing we never do: Get a thermometer out and obsess over serving temperature. This stuff we very much do by feel. Here are some guidelines on Beaujolais serving temperatures: Most people keep their fridge between 35 and 40 degrees F. The lightest, simplest Beaujolais, like Beaujolais Nouveau or a basic Beaujolais i. As these wines warm up to room temperature or higher, the acidity that gives them definition and so much charm will start to fade.

Beaujolais Village, and the lighter Crus should be served a touch warmer, to bring out more of the subtleties without losing acidity -- just around 60 degrees. The very best Beaujolais Crus can be treated like a great Burgundy; you might like them served even a bit over 60 degrees. Should I decant my Beaujolais? Some very young wines can be helped by a bit of decanting. If you open a bottle and either of these seems to be the case, splash the wine in a decanter for a few minutes and you may see the fruit come out and the oddball flavors integrate.

Some much older Beaujolais can also be decanted. Opinion is divided, but sometimes decanting the wine off those solids will help the flavors to really shine. How should I store my unfinished bottle of Beaujolais? There are lots of technologies to preserve wines but we tend to keep it simple: put a cork in the wine and stick it in the fridge.

Can I pair Beaujolais with food? As we said above, one of the great thing about Beaujolais is how good it is with food. We will go into a little more depth in each of the sections of this guide on the different levels of Beaujolais, but for now here are some general ideas: We often drink the simplest, lightest Beaujolais on their own.

Chilled down like a rose at a party, maybe. A little pre-dinner snack of meats and cheese are a no-brainer, but you can do a lot more. Sign In. Thu November 16, Please join us as we celebrate the release of the Beaujolais Nouveau at Zazie, a small neighborhood bistro in Cole Valley! We will start with an induction ceremony for new members including Jennifer Piallat, owner of Zazie to the Ordre des Compagnons du Beaujolais- Devoir de San Francisco, followed by dinner.

Feel free to bring your favorite Beaujolais wines as well, no corkage fee! Note: We will serve passed appetizers and Beaujolais Blanc starting at pm, then the ceremony will start promptly at