Dave McIntyre's WineLine

What's Ahead in 2011?

What should wine lovers expect in 2011? More debate over direct shipping, and hopefully we'll get that privilege here in Maryland this year. But will be able to order from out-of-state retailers, or just wineries? And will we be allowed to bring our own wines to restaurants in Maryland?

Politics is likely to dominate debate in other states as well, as governors in Virginia and Pennsylvania try to privatize their states' liquor control regimes. Should the government be in charge of selling alcoholic beverages? It's a worthy question with no simple answer.

Local wine will continue to gather buzz as well. The DrinkLocalWine.com conference focused blogger attention on Virginia last year - look for more this year when the Wine Bloggers Conference comes to Charlottesville - the Napa of the East.

Consumers, of course, will continue to seek value. We've learned that we don't have to pay top dollar to get a really good wine - we just may have to search a little harder. $10 is the new $20, etc.

And where will we find bargains this year? My prediction for the hot "new" bargain wine region is none other than France, as wines from the textbook 2009 vintage reach our retail shelves throughout the year. My January Recession Busters list in today's Washington Post already has a few French 09s, and you can expect many more throughout the year!

Happy drinking, everyone!

Beaujolais - Everything Old is Nouveau Again

Today is the third Thursday of November - which for wine lovers is a day to stay inside and avoid the hype of "Le Beaujolais nouveau est arrivee". But I've always loved nouveau, and I wrote about it in November 1999, in my second e-mail newsletter, Dave McIntyre's WineLine. Someone recently said WineLine was one of the first wine blogs; I dunno, no one had invented the word "blog" then, and it took me years to put it on a website. I still don't post as regularly as I should, or would like to. That's because I have deadlines for articles that people pay me for, and well, I have a life. But here's what I wrote about Beaujolais Nouveau back in 1999, to the few people who had given me their e-mail addresses and said they would like to read my writings. I offer it now to the few subscribers of this blog, or whatever it should be called. Cheers!

 

Thursday around noon I'll be standing in a wine shop awaiting a special delivery. This is always a tricky business, as wine shops can be cramped and delivery men take sport in weaving dolleys loaded with liquor or beer swiftly through the aisles, jostling the displays and clipping the ankles of unsuspecting customers.

But this is the third Thursday of November, so I'll take that risk because le Beaujolais nouveau est arrivé.

Wine snobs look askance at Beaujolais nouveau. We like to dust off a forgotten bottle of five-dollar spaghetti red that's been boiling to vinegar in our garages, then rave about the marvels of age. It's reassuring, after all, to think that a nectar we identify so closely with life itself gets better with time; we'd like to think we'll age so gracefully. Something so new, so fresh out of the press, something that actually tastes of fruit instead of macho tannins is naturally considered inferior, worthy only of ignorant neophytes who describe wines with meaningless mush words like "dry" or "smooth." Pablum for soda drinkers.

Another reason wine snobs hate nouveau is that it is heavily marketed and has made one man, Georges Duboeuf, fantastically rich. Having spent ourselves into near-penury stocking up on our fave Barolos and late harvest Zinfandels, we resent anyone who is living royally off our hard-earned dollars. Someone that successful should have given us a snobbier wine, one that would receive at least 90 points from Robert Parker. We prefer wines made by mythical "artisans" who sacrifice all for quality and therefore earn mere pennies per bottle of their exorbitantly priced and never-to-be-found Cabernet.

Beaujolais nouveau, on the other hand, is mass produced and shipped out in truck convoys on the stroke of midnight the third Thursday of November to be air-freighted around the world. Or so the marketing types say. It may have been resting in our warehouses for weeks, so far as we know. If a wine snob is somehow forced to drink a glass of nouveau, he will invariably complain that it doesn't taste as "banana-y" as the 1996.

Who cares? Beyond the hype, Beaujolais nouveau is a celebration of the harvest just completed. By pulling that cork this Thursday, we can join in with French vignerons as they commemorate a global Thanksgiving of sorts, the unofficial start to the wine lover's holiday season. And with our own national harvest celebration only a week away, it's noteworthy that nouveau's grapey sweetness pairs beautifully with turkey and all the trimmings – both in symbolism and flavor.

In fact, Beaujolais – nouveau or not – is one of the most food-friendly of wines, even though it is under-represented in our wine stores because of the bad image nouveau has given the lot. Or because the French, who aren't given to snobbishness when no Americans are around, want to keep it for themselves.

Nouveau is no longer the first wine with this year's vintage, like the shiny new penny you find in your change drawer each January. Some 1999 Sauvignon Blancs from New Zealand have already reached our shelves, and some U.S. wineries, most notably Beringer, produce some nouveau from near-forgotten plots of Gamay and rush it to market unencumbered by artificial deadlines such as the "third Thursday of November." And no, it is not the best wine for the price; but that misses the point.

Wine is the bottled memories of summers past, and there is no reason to wait to celebrate the most recent. So let's strike a blow against snobbery and in favor of sentimentality Thursday as we pull that brand new, unstained cork from a bottle of Beaujolais nouveau and raise a toast to all within earshot in honor of the final vintage of the millennium.    

Let the holidays begin!

 Early issues of Dave McIntyre's WineLine are archived on Robin Garr's WineLover's Page.

Weygandt's Beaujolais "Primeur" 2009

Wine lovers tend to frown upon Beaujolais Nouveau as a cynical marketing gimmick, but we really should think of it as a fun celebration of the recent harvest. It’s Thanksgiving time, after all, and what is the National Day of Gluttony if it isn’t a celebration of food and the recent harvest? That Nouveau comes on the market exactly one week before Turkey Day is all the more fitting. Think of it as Hands Across the Sea, Franco-American friendship at its best.

If you’d like to experience a Beaujolais Nouveau with some heft, the 2009 vintage is ideal. This was a terrific year in Burgundy and Beaujolais by all accounts, and even the simple, early drinking young Nouveaux will reflect the quality of the vintage.

My call this year is the Domaine de Vissoux Beaujolais Primeur 2009 from winemaker Pierre Chermette and importer Peter Weygandt. At $13, it’s an effusive, fruity wine that shouts fun and hints of great things to come from this vintage.

The wine is available in DC at the new Weygandt Wines store in Cleveland Park. The store opened just last month, and features about 450 selections that are imported by Weygandt under his Peter Weygandt Selections label. Wine lovers will recognize that Weygandt is following a rare example – famed importer Kermit Lynch has a store in Berkeley, California, featuring his imports, and Neal Rosenthal transformed his retail operation into an importing business. But importer as retailer is still rare, and it’s exciting that Weygandt, who is based near Philadelphia, has decided to open a retail store in Washington.

More to come on this new entrant to the DC wine retail scene. For now, enjoy this delightful Beaujolais Nouveau – er, “primeur” – and celebrate the new harvest and the new entry into the local wine retail scene.

Postscript: After this item was posted yesterday on "All You Can Eat," the food blog of The Washington Post, someone calling himself Gary4Books posted this comment:

I am so impressed. Sophisticated wine drinking seems to go perfectly with gluttony.

Enjoy!

But do not expect me to join in.

Aside from the fact that Beaujolais Nouveau hardly counts as "sophisticated wine drinking," why is someone with that attitude even reading a food blog to begin with?

Red or White for Thanksgiving? BOTH!

Or as I always say, "Open one of everything!"

But here's my take on the food/wine pairing conundrum for this Thanksgiving, in Sunday's Washington Post special Food section, with wine recommendations paired to featured recipes. Note the commenter who didn't pay attention to what I was writing, and please enter comments of your own on what you like to drink for Thanksgiving.

Enjoy the tryptophan, everyone!

Cheers,

Dave

A Tight-Knit Cru - Beaujolais as it Should Be

If you think Beaujolais is just grapey Nouveau or insipid plonk, think again. It's time to discover the delicious, mineral and food-friendly wines of the Beaujolais crus, the 10 appellations that give added expression to the gamay grape. You can read about these wines in my July 29 column in The Washington Post.