Beaujolais Nouveau arrives in stores today, and we interviewed prominent aviator Admiral Ackbar, whose enormous nostrils give him great olfactory sensitivity. This is what he said:"It's a trap!"
Ackbar was referring to the marketing scheme of the Beaujolais region, in which they have successfully convinced consumers that wine in its larval stage is something worth celebrating. People pay more now for a Nouveau wine -- which should be swished and spit at the winery just to make sure its development is coming along -- then they do for completely finished wines from good growing regions that have spent 6 months maturing in oak barrels, gaining aromatic and gustatory nuances.
"It's a trap!" Ackbar added, because retailers tell their less knowledgeable customers that Beaujolais Nouveau is a great match for Thanksgiving dinner.
In fact, Beaujolais Nouveau has the shortest retail shelf life of any wine: if it's not all sold by early December, the retailer is going to have to put the remainder in the $2 bin at the front of the store. That's closer to its real value: given the choice between Charles Shaw and Beaujolais Nouveau, I could go either way.
"It's a trap," Ackbar concluded.
2 comments:
That's a myth. Nouveau simply ages in bottle the way any other (admittedly simple) wine would. It won't last 5 years, but it doesn't somehow lose everything after two months. The reason for that myth is for producers to get past Nouveau supplies quickly so they can sell Beaujolais-Villages and Crus. Unfortunately most of the industry is unable to sell real Beaujolais because they don't know how to, so the plan to use Nouveau to help sell the entire category is flawed. The intent was to illuminate the region and its wines, not to be the only thing consumers think of when they hear "Beaujolais"
Sorry, Admiral Ackbar mentioned oak aging, not bottle aging. The great majority of red wines are improved by a few months in oak barrels. The Admiral prefers his wine with the kind of complexity that his proboscis was evolutionarily designed to appreciate.
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