Welcome to the site! If you’re here because you were at the tasting this afternoon, here’s your chance to compare what you tasted with what we tasted and {drum roll, please} find out which wine was what. And let us know what you think in the comments. If you just want to check out some tasting notes on this year’s Beaujolais Nouveaux, please feel free to join the conversation, because we’ve got a real controversial offering below.
As many of you already know, ‘cuz you were at the tasting or you read yesterday’s post, Beaujolais Nouveau is a special bottling of new wine that comes out every November. Now, Beaujolais is a place name for the region in France where this light, fruity wine is made, and the Nouveau is not to be confused with the often age-worthy Beaujolais Villages and Grand Cru wines from the region.
While a lot of wine snobs love looking down their long, bony noses at it because it is generally light, fruity, young and inexpensive, we also happen to think it’s one of the best bottles you can get for your Thanksgiving table.
We did a blind tasting of three Nouveaux, but threw in a ringer – one that is not Beaujolais. It’s just a new red from here in California, but it’s still pretty tasty. All of these are dry red wines, which go with a variety of foods. As always, our notes are here for calibration purposes so that if you tasted melon and we said peach, you’ll know that when we write peach, you’ll taste melon.
BOTTLE #1
Georges DuBoeuf Nouveau
This is your classic Beaujolais Nouveau, although it has a slightly darker color than some years. The nose is kind of closed at first, but it opens up to a very fruity scent, almost candy-like, called tutti frutti (Italian for all fruits). The mouth feel is still classically light with just a little acid and dry, but very light, tannins (that drying sensation in your mouth).
By they way, this one seems to be everywhere, so have fun.
BOTTLE #2
Georges DuBoeuf Nouveau Villages
The Villages Beaujolais are traditionally the mid-tier pretty good stuff, with the Grand Crus being the high end wines. We’ve never seen a Villages Nouveau before, so either this is a rare shipment to the U.S. or a rare bottling. We found this one at BevMo.
This one also has the dark color and tutti-frutti nose on it, but Michael also caught a hint of banana, as well. This one’s flavor is a tad more tart, however, and the tannins are softer.
BOTTLE #3
Charles Shaw Nouveau
Surprised? Yeah, we were, too. We’ve always said that if you didn’t know you were drinking the infamous Two-Buck Chuck, you’d probably like it a lot more than you would if you knew what you were drinking. That being said, we’ve also had some pretty dreadful bottles from this label. The most consistently good ones, we’ve found are the chardonnay, which is the one that has won all the medals, and the cabernet sauvignon.
So we weren’t counting on much when we tasted this one. Anne tasted the three wines blind (not knowing which was which) and actually thought she had one of the DuBoeufs when she sniffed because she caught a hint of what we call French Funk – an eensy, tiny hint of sulphur in the nose of the wine, to which Anne is particularly sensitive. Michael said he actually liked this one a bit better than the French ones – and he was not expecting that.
But it has the same dark color the other two have. The nose isn’t quite as obviously fruity as the other two, but it still has the same light mouthfeel. It, too, has the tartness of good acid and a hint of fizz. Michael thought the flavor was slightly sweet, but Anne didn’t think it was sweet at all. The bottom line was that it compared quite favorably to its two French cousins, though Anne didn’t think it was quite as good.
And, yes, it’s only available at Trader Joe’s.
BTW, the unofficial results of the blind tasting this afternoon – when we asked you which of the three wines were your favorites – are listed below:
Nouveau = 7 favorites
Villages = 5 favorites
Two Buck = 11 favorites
There you have it. But the continuing lesson of OBG is whatever tastes good to you is what you should be drinking. Scores and labels be damned!
