Beaujolais Day is almost here!

I love Beaujolais, especially Georges Duboeuf. At $6 a bottle, it's deal, it's a steal...it's the sale of the fucking century.


IF “wine is bottled poetry,” as Robert Louis Stevenson once wrote, then Beaujolais Day is a release party for a book of cheery verse. Every year on the third Thursday in November, festivals, dinners and, of course, much drinking celebrate the arrival of the season’s Beaujolais nouveau. It’s a familiar custom in France, where revelers gather in cafes and bistros to sip the latest vintage, but speedy delivery of the new wine by air now allows Americans to join in on the big day at home, too.

Beaujolais nouveau, made from the Gamay grape in a hilly area of France just north of Lyon, is not a complex or sophisticated drink. Aged for about six weeks, it tastes light, fruity and just-off-the-vine fresh. For centuries, French farmhands gulped it down to celebrate the end of the harvest, and in the last few decades, urbanites embraced its arrival as a celebratory event of fall.

According to French law, the new Beaujolais cannot be served before that magic Thursday (Nov. 16 this year), and so on the preceding Wednesday evening, restaurants and bars in this country, like many in France, help wine lovers count the minutes until midnight.

At Bistrot Du Coin in the DuPont Circle neighborhood of Washington, the mayor usually pops the first cork (as Mayor Anthony A. Williams is expected to do this year), and after that, the wine flows freely — and free. “We offer the Beaujolais to everyone to celebrate; it’s a big party,” said Michel Verdon, who owns the restaurant with Yannis Felix. “You drink for free, as much as you want.” At least until closing at 2 a.m.

Hundreds typically pack the restaurant drinking two Beaujolais nouveaux, Bouchard Aine and Georges Duboeuf, and eating traditional French dishes like tripe. It may already be too late to reserve a table, but there's unreserved space at the bar, and drinkers usually line up for it outside on the big night, Mr. Verdon said.

In Boston, Brasserie Jo in Back Bay has a French-themed party. This year’s focus will be fashion, with models in French couture strutting on a runway. There will also be food from the Beaujolais region, mimes and a cigarette girl handing out candy cigarettes and chocolate cigars. Beaujolais nouveau, the owner, Jean Joho, said, is “a typical brasserie wine, very fun, so we make the restaurant like that, too.”

Some celebrations start later.

In Lake Zurich, Ill., D&J Bistro will hold its dinner on Thursday, with salmon in a Beaujolais nouveau reduction sauce and a dessert combining white chocolate mousse and pears in a Beaujolais nouveau sauce. Patrons will also try tossing a beret on top of a model Eiffel Tower to win a bottle of Beaujolais nouveau, and will join in the singing as waiters croon French drinking songs like “Chevaliers de la Table Ronde” (“Knights of the Round Table”).

“We serve a lot of Beaujolais that night,” D&J’s general manager, Stéphane Goupile, said.

On Friday, the French-American Chamber of Commerce of Dallas/Fort Worth will hold its annual Beaujolais Wine Festival a day late, but it is the largest American event for Beaujolais Day. About 2,000 are expected at the city convention center to taste a half-dozen varieties.

Even though this festival will also include entertainment and food from local restaurants, conversation can be expected to focus on the wine, said Isabelle De Wulf, the director of the chamber. “Each year, it tastes different,” she said. “That is the big surprise.” Early reports from Duboeuf, the largest producer of Beaujolais, say this year’s wine has a deep reddish color and strong strawberry and raspberry flavors.

Wine shops will also be celebrating. In Brooklyn, Red, White & Bubbly will start opening bottles on Thursday morning and pouring through Sunday. The store will provide hors d’oeuvres and French music by an accordionist. “This isn’t a great wine,” the shop’s owner, Darrin Siegfried, said. “It doesn’t have much structure. But it’s a good excuse to have a party. It’s like I know there isn’t a Santa Claus, but I still buy gifts for my nieces and nephews.”

This article was written by Uwe Bosler for the New York Times