HUNGRY GERALD

Today, HG noted there are only two bottles of this year’s Beaujolais Nouveau in the wine room. Much has been drunk since some cases of Beaujolais Nouveau arrived in November.   A very good year for the wine.  Light, fruity, full of flavor.  Chill it slightly and it goes with everything—fish, fowl meat, cheese.  HG and BSK will drink those last bottles tonight with a spicy platter of Filipino chicken.  HG believes that Beaujolais Nouveau has only a three month life. Definitely doesn’t improve with age. The wine varies sharply from year to year,  Sometime it’s very good and sometimes it’s undrinkable.  HG and BSK visited Paris in November for many years  (to celebrate HG’s birthday).  Signs on every cafe and bistro would greet them:  Le Beaujolais Nouveau Est Arrivee.  The New Beaujolais Is Here.  Good or bad vintage, the arrival spelled Paris Party Time.  Noisy song, music and laughter throughout the night.  No Gallic restraint.  Beaujolais Noveau is filled with fruit —and treachery. One has a tendency to drink a great deal of it.  One has a tendency to get very drunk. One has a tendency to get pissed, sozzled, shit-faced.  One has a dreadful hangover.  HG makes these observations based upon bitter experience.  Exercise caution, my bibulous buddies.

§ One Response to Le Beaujolais Noveau Est Arivee. Let’s Get Pissed.

• old gringo says:

  January 24, 2011 at 12:38 pm

  Ah Gerald, you take me back. Back to a day when I thought wine was a Skid Row supplement. I still don’t know squat about wine, but I do remember the day, many, many years ago, on the balcony of some ski lodge in the Colorado Rockies, when a guy named Clay Bridgeford handed me glass of nouveau beaujolais. I took a sip. “Tastes like a wonderful sandwich,” said I. So I had another sip. And another. Then another glass. Then, I think, yet another glass. And then? Well, who’s remembering? It was a great introduction to the wide world of wines, winos and the fine times that accompany them. I still don’t drink much wine, but my eyes light up and my hand reaches out whenever I’m offered a glass of nouveau beaujolais.

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