By Aaron Ayscough , Contributing Editor to Paris by Mouth
Good stuff exists. Here's where to get it, and what it means to drink it.
Beaujolais Nouveau is rather like gin -- people who won't touch the stuff usually have a legendarily bad story to tell involving a harrowing experience with the worst product imaginable. At its worst, Beaujolais Nouveau is indeed something less than a wine, a creepy under-aged creation of greenish grapes rouged up with sugar and sulfur. But just as the last two decades' international cocktail renaissance has redeemed gin for many drinkers, so too does Paris' booming natural wine scene contain the redemption of Beaujolais Nouveau - a quaff that, at its best, is a dashing, sun-dappled débutante of a wine, a pristine and lively beverage whose unseriousness is a big part of its charm. This latter wine, the good Beaujolais Nouveau, is readily accessible in Paris, if you know the right spots. There are a few stories to tell first, though, and several myths to dispel.
Beaujolais Nouveau the wine does indeed form part of the Beaujolais region's cultural history. But Beaujolais Nouveau the wine belongs to a category of wines called vins primeurs, meaning any wine sold in the same year it was harvested, shortly after completing fermentation. There are no fewer than 55 appellations in France that permit the production of vin primeur. Beaujolais Nouveau's fame -- and later notoriety -- came thanks to the marketing ingenuity of one winemaker, the ubiquitous Georges Duboeuf. He's responsible for Beaujolais Nouveau the event -- an idea that was born only in the late sixties, after Duboeuf formed his négociant company, Les Vins Georges Duboeuf. So get rid of the image of the medieval town crier fleet-footedly hoofing from town to town crowing about the Beaujolais Nouveau being ready: it never happened. This fiction was so successful, however, that it became an intoxicating international liquor-store phenomenon, with all the subsequent cultural hangover that implies. "People are resistant, because they were unfortunately abused by bad wine," says Guillaume Dupré, proprietor of Coinstot Vino, a lively wine bar in the Passage des Panoramas in the 2ème arrondissement. Dupré throws an annual Beaujolais Nouveau party with five or six winemakers, plus a banjo and accordion group. "For a while we've been trying to show the wines of winemakers who work without cheating, without dishonesty." Loic Mougene, sommelier of 1èr arrondissement bistrot La Robe et le Palais, concurs: "There are a lot of clichés. They come from the experience of people who don't have the habit of tasting natural wines." Late in the evening on the third Wednesday of November, La Robe et le Palais becomes the ground zero of quality Beaujolais in Paris, for it's perhaps the most wine-savvy of the dwindling number of restaurants that continue the tradition of serving the Nouveau at the toll of midnight. Natural Beaujolais winemakers attend en masse.
"The clichés come from what we call the 'vins sur mesure,'" says Mougene. "Wines made to order -- it's those that broke Beaujolais about fifteen years ago." Les Vins Georges Duboeuf has for the past 30 years maintained a wine shop in the 8ème arrondissement, a short walk from métro Alma Marceau. Even by the standards of this witheringly conservative quartier, La Cave de Georges Duboeuf is frouffy and dated. Its storefront is cotton-candy pink. Gaps pock the harshly lit shelves, which stock the many ranges of Georges Duboeuf wines - principally Beaujolais, in every conceivable variation, not just red in all denominations but also white, rosé, and sparkling versions, plus Côte du Rhône, Mâcon blanc - pretty much whatever might sell. Co-proprietor Bruno Vertut is frank about the state of Beaujolais Nouveau, sales of which have been in decline in France for over a decade. "In Paris, Beaujolais Nouveau falls further into disuse every year," he admits. He cites changing cultural attitudes, noting that French CEOs are less willing to host staff events involving alcohol, whereas formerly Beaujolais Nouveau was popular in corporate venues. Vertut is sanguine about the future of the genre, despite its damaged reputation in France. "It's big in Asia, and on the west coast of America. We don't even have enough wine to serve all the emerging markets."
To mark the release of the 2013 Beaujolais Nouveau on the 21st November, La Cave de Georges Duboeuf will open from 8 a.m. until 7 p.m., selling and offering tastings of various primeur bottlings, but particularly "La Cuvée Georges Duboeuf," a cuvée unavailable on the export market made from parcels selected by Duboeuf himself, now in his 80s. "We make different cuvées for different markets," Vertut explains. "Like China, for example, we make a cuvée that will please the consumers there. But this is the true 'Cuvée Georges Duboeuf.'" Duboeuf himself will not be present for the release; he will be at a similar event in Japan. His son Franck, to whom the reins of the company have been ceded, will be in the USA. "Over 90% of the production of Georges Duboeuf is exported," explains Vertut.
Patrick Fabre, proprietor of Aux Tonneaux des Halles, an unassuming Halles-side bistrot hunkered between the chocolate shops and take-out pizza places on rue Montorgeuil in Paris' 1èr arrondissement, has witnessed the highs and lows of Beaujolais Nouveau during his twenty-three years at the address. He tells of how, in 2001, the annual Beaujolais Nouveau fête he throws at Aux Tonneaux des Halles drew enormous crowds and no less than three television crews. His son Boris, 31, who also works at the bar and who worked his first Beaujolais Nouveau party at age sixteen, remembers a time when Beaujolais Nouveau was a nearly week-long affair. "You had the party at midnight on the Wednesday, then all day Thursday, then Friday night, then Saturday at noon..."
Fabre et fils still throw a rocking party on the evening of Beaujolais Nouveau, always the third Thursday of November. (Nov. 21st this year.) But now it's only on Thursdays. And even on the night-of, Fabre père has some convincing to do with his uninitiated clients. "It's been years since I've been explaining natural Beaujolais to people," he says. "There are some who get it, who understand. There are others who spit, who say it smells of bananas, who go right back to drinking crap the next day." At Aux Tonneaux des Halles Fabre has long served exclusively natural wines: wines made more-than-organically, with an emphasis on non-corrective vinification and low-to-zero sulfur use. When one year - Fabre doesn't remember which - the restaurant guide Gault Miliau wished to award Aux Tonneaux des Halles a "Bistrot of the Month" award, he was aghast when a friend informed him the guide would be sending him several double-magnums of Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais to be pictured alongside him. The huge bottles of Duboeuf were duly delivered to the restaurant. So Fabre gave them to his kitchen staff as presents. The guide subsequently declined to print his picture without their corporate partner's product. Now that natural wines have become, along with Bordier butter and Desnoyer meats, an almost predictable component of the luxury arsenal in many new Paris restaurants, media coverage of buzzy restaurant openings now genuflects to these restaurants' natural wine lists as a matter of course. If that trend has largely passed Aux Tonneaux des Halles by, it's because Aux Tonneaux des Halles is a crowingly untrendy restaurant. It serves nothing but dead-simple country bistrot cooking and its back-bar is festooned with empty old magnums, some refilled with luminescent red crême de cassis for making kirs. It is the sort of place that still unself-consciously celebrates Beaujolais Nouveau. I contacted many Paris chefs and restaurateurs for this article to determine who is planning what and where for the release of Beaujolais Nouveau. Those who will host parties or tastings were enthusiastic. "It's the New Year's day of wine," explains Fabre. "We celebrate the vintage - not just of Beaujolais, but all wines." Others restaurateurs, when asked if they plan to celebrate Beaujolais Nouveau, replied, "Absolutely not." And I was only phoning people who I knew liked Beaujolais.
The marked difference of opinion among connoisseurs is related to Beaujolais' two faces. On the one side, there's the primeur wine popularized by the likes of Duboeuf, whose annual production reportedly tops 30 million bottles, a full 20% of the Beaujolais region's total wine production. On the other side are the so-called "New Wave" of natural Beaujolais producers, led by the late Marcel Lapierre in Villié-Morgon. Since the late 1970's, alongside neighboring winemakers like Jean Foillard, Guy Breton, and Jean-Paul Thévenet, Lapierre pioneered a quality-conscious, biodynamic, unchaptalized, low-to-zero-sulfur, vividly pure style of non-Nouveau Beaujolais that continues to inspire acclaim among wine afficionados, myself included. We prize its electric tension, its singing red fruit, its underrated aging potential. We also prize its value. The prices of the most celebrated bottles of cru Beaujolais hover in the early twenties at wine shops like Le Verre Volé, Cru et Découverts, and La Cave des Papilles. The same bottles are reliable bargains on wine lists at most of Paris' buzzy dining destinations, from Septime to Le Chateaubriand to Le Comptoir du Relais and Vivant Table. If some of those establishments avoid celebrating or even mentioning Beaujolais Nouveau, it's often because they prefer to avoid the taint associated with the irretrievably down-market image of the worst stuff. Beaujolais Nouveau, at its base, is a bright, feather-light, sugar-ripe wine, made from grapes that see only a four or five-day carbonic maceration, as opposed to ten-plus days for grapes destined for later-released cru Beaujolais bottlings. Because the grapes see very short fermentation, and almost no élevage in tank or barrel, the resultant wines are pungently fruity, often bearing a touch of residual sugar. They're populist wines, easy to drink and undemanding. But in the same way that in popular western culture the poetry form of haiku has become, through constant comedic overexposure, something of a knock-knock joke, so too did the outward simplicity of conventional Beaujolais Nouveau make it a ripe target for exploitation. It's light, it's drunk at parties, and, critically, it requires no costly storage or aging on the part of the winemaker.
"When Beaujolais had the wind at its back, winemakers tried to sell as much as possible, to the detriment of quality," explains Vauxrenard-based natural Beaujolais winemaker Isabelle Perraud. "Since then the media has communicated a lot of bad things about selected yeasts and chaptalisation." She refers to the select yeast 71B, which became the source of some controversy as the alleged culprit for the banana smell one regularly encounters in Beaujolais Nouveau, and to the practice of adding foreign sugar to under-ripe grapes to increase a wine's alcoholic content. "But even these methods aren't unique to bad Beaujolais..." she adds. Like the other aforementioned Beaujolais natural winemakers, Perraud and her husband Bruno make a small amount of Nouveau. They call theirs "Brut de Cuve." It's made with indigenous yeasts, zero sulfur, zero added sugar, and zero filtration. These methods represent the antithesis of the Georges Duboeuf model, for, rather than tailor the cuvée to the tastes of its intended audience, they aim to create a wine as an expression of place, time, and circumstance. "It's not an easy wine to make," Perraud adds. "We have very little time to make it in, and you have to be a skilful winemaker to succeed."
Karim Vionnet, a natural Beaujolais winemaker based in Villié-Morgon, made just 6000 bottles this year. None will be exported to the USA. "Because I didn't make any Beaujolais-Villages in 2012, I had to make some in 2013," he explains, illustrating a vexing dynamic for many Beaujolais winemakers: the more Nouveau they produce, the less juice they have left for non-Nouveau, a wine that commands a better price. So for the new wave of natural Beaujolais producers, whose non-Nouveau wines are selling steadily as their good reputations set them apart from the old guard, why produce Beaujolais Nouveau at all? The reasons are partly sentimental. "It's a wine to drink among friends," says Isabelle Perraud. "It's a reason to get together in November when the weather is grey and the days are short." For Benjamin Fourty, who as co-proprietor of 5ème arrondissement natural wine bar Café de la Nouvelle Mairie throws one of Paris' most memorable Beaujolais Nouveau events every year, the answer is simple. "It's tradition. And even if Beaujolais Nouveau is bad for the image of the good Beaujolais, the good winemakers making it usually don't give a hoot about their reputations."
Celebrating Beaujolais Nouveau In Paris
Aaron's Picks
On Wednesday November 20, 2013 (the night before)
La Robe et le Palais (13 Rue des Lavandières Sainte-Opportune, 75001) Owner Olivier Schvirtz and sommelier Loic Mougene throw what is possibly Paris' last remaining quality-conscious midnight-release party for Beaujolais Nouveau on Wednesday the 20th November. The multi-faceted event will run as follows:
- 16h-19h : Book signing by wine writer Michel Tolmer.
- 19h-22h : Normal restaurant service.
- 22h-00h : Special Beaujolais dinner, with a fixed menu of regional dishes. Beaujolais Nouveau wines saved from previous years will be served to accompany the dinner.
- 00h-2h : Party, in the probable attendance of many Beaujolais winemakers. Beaujolais Nouveau from Karim Vionnet, Jean-Claude Lapalu, France Gonzalvez, Xavier Benier. Music: Possibly.
On Thursday November 21, 2013
La Cave des Papilles (35 Rue Daguerre, 75014) Florian Aubertin, wine buyer at La Cave des Papilles, promises a suberb tasting from 4 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. He aims to present vins primeurs from all the viticultural regions of France. Probable appearances by the winemakers involved. La Cave des Papilles, incidentally, offers among the best selections of natural wine in Paris. Beaujolais Nouveaux from Nicolas Testard, Jean Foillard, Jean-Claude Lapalu, plus other vins primeurs from Jo Landron (Loire), Olivier Lemasson (Loire), Jean-Christophe Comor, Marchel Richaud, Jean-François Nicq. Music: live jazz. Le Repaire de Cartouche (8 Boulevard des Filles du Calvaire, 75011) Legendarily intense chef-owner Rodolphe Paquin celebrates Beaujo Nouveau with gusto. Probable appearances by several winemakers involved. Beaujolais Nouveau from Karim Vionnet, Marcel Lapierre, Guy Breton. Music: live band. Le Garde Robe (41 Rue de l'Arbre Sec, 75001) Winemaker Jean-Claude Lalapu himself will be present, along with a barrel of his wine, and copious bowls of onion soup, at this popular natural wine bar by the Louvre. Beaujolais Nouveau by: Jean-Claude Lalaplu. Music: none. Aux Tonneaux des Halles (28, rue Montorgeuil, 75001) Proprietor Patrick Fabre has been throwing what is reportedly Paris' most rocking Beaujolais Nouveau event for 23 years straight at his dirt-simple terraced bistrot near Etienne Marcel. Probable appearances by all winemakers involved. I'm told it goes late. Beaujolais Nouveau from Marcel Joubert, Jean Foillard, and Georges Descombes. Music: Live jazz by Les Barriques Aux Rouges.
Other Notable Beaujolais Nouveau Events
La Buvette (67 rue Saint Maur, 75011) Winemaker Marcel Joubert will be present from 7 p.m. onwards at Camille Fourmont's bright, thimble-sized wine bar on rue Saint Maur. Beaujolais Nouveau from Marcel Joubert, Rémi Dufaitre. Music: None. Coinstot Vino (26 Passage des Panoramas, 75002) A special menu will be served. All Beaujolais Nouveau will be served from magnum. Beaujolais Nouveau from France Gonzalvez, Cyril Alonso, Raphael Champier, Karim Vionnet, Nicolas Testard. Music: A banjo and accordian combo. Juveniles (47 Rue de Richelieu, 75001) Beaujolais Nouveau from Pierre-Marie Chermette's "Cuvée Tim," specially selected by owner Tim Johnston. Music: None. Saucisse Lyonnnais will be served. Probable appearance by Pierre-Marie Chermette. L'Entrée des Artistes (8 Rue de Crussol, 75011) Beaujolais Nouveau from Michel Guignier (the one from Vauxrenard, not the one from Villié-Morgon) and Lilian Bauchat. Music: Probably the same classicist hip-hop as always.
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