The third Thursday of every November is the day that Beaujolais Nouveau is released. It’s a marketing gimmick embraced by pre-holiday revelers world-wide, and the wine itself can be seen as a sneak peek of the current vintage from the Beaujolais region of France.
But, for more serious wine fans, it’s a reminder of the other Beaujolais — the more traditional version — and the 10 Crus which produce a palate and wallet-pleasing alternative to out-of-reach Burgundy.
It also begs the question: “What is tradition in wine?”
Early-release wines have been micro-traditions in small villages around the world for centuries, but it wasn’t until Parisians embraced the Nouveau marketing several decades ago that anybody knew about it.
We’ll talk with Peter Rizzo of Natural Wines of Naples about a new emergence from dusty tradition to trend: “natural” wines. The term natural on a wine bottle carries a lot more weight than on a box of granola bars, and Peter will walk us through what makes a wine “natural.”
