Image borrowed from the Louis-Jadot website.
I've been abstaining from wine since last Friday. Not that there hasn't been many a moment where I would have liked to lie on the grass with a deep, soothing pinot noir. Just yesterday I was in a meeting to present my artwork to a buyer who owns 15 stores, and my bra strap decided to go ping!, sending one boob Southward. Try and look like a professional business person while digging under your top to hook your bra back up, I dare you. This seems to be in keeping with my week of humiliation; it's been several days of apologies, long explanations and keeping of the appearance of holding myself together when half the time I wish the earth would open up and swallow me whole. But listen to me rambling on about boring things like midlife crises and falling boobs. Really what I wanted to talk about was the first wine I tried that got me interested in wine in the first place.
Keep in mind that my wine experiences for most of my life have been limited the cheap, nasty stuff that makes mouths pucker at fundraising dinners and wedding receptions everywhere. Once in a while my dad or sister would introduce me to a wine I liked considerably better than those little glasses of vinegar, but usually those offerings were heavier, deeply fruity and tannic wines. That's not a bad quality in itself, but when it's all you're every exposed to, it gets tremendously boring.
Little wonder then, that when I first got my lips around Beaujolais that I had a wine Revelation. Now I think in my inaugural post I described this wine as sex in a glass. I'm no longer of that opinion (I've had liaisons with much sexier wines since then!), but I will say that at the time, it was an eye-opening experience, because it made me realize the possibility for variation of flavours in wine.
If you're a wine greeney like me, and have no idea what I'm talking about, Beaujolais is kind of like the French equivalent of Kool-Aid, and I mean that in the best possible way. Light and fruity, Beaujolais has very little tannic flavour, which is probably why you're supposed to drink it while it's young. Tannin is the stuff that preserves red wine, so without tannin wine would spoil after a few years in the cellar. This is typically why red wines are aged for long periods of time before they are drunk, and wines without gobs of tannin--white wine, rose(eh!) and Beaujolais--are usually enjoyed within their first few years of production. See! I'm learning things!
ANYWAY, the light tannins and superfruity cherry flavour of Beaujolais is a pleasant surprise to the palate after a lifetime of vinegar and heavy tannin. I distinctly remember thinking this is a wine you could chug-a-lug on a hot day, and how surprised I was by that because it was a red wine. I suppose this is what they call 'quaffing' wine; something that's easily knocked back without food and goes well with lighter fare. It's wine more suitable for the picnic than it is for the bbq.
Having tried many wines since, I will say Beaujolais not my favouritist of favourites. I now find it a bit thin, with virtually no lingering finish or complexity. It's innocuous, which I suppose is good in some situations, but when you're keen on finding exciting flavours it doesn't quite fit the bill. But I am very grateful to this wine. It showed me there's a ocean of different flavours out there waiting to be discovered. It's the wine that pushed me forward and made me eager to try the next bottle of something new. And it's the wine I keep in the fridge when I want a fingerful of something inoffensive to wash down my two Tylenol and a multivitamin at the end of the day.
Louis-Jadot's Beaujolais-Villages 2008 can be found at your local LCBO.
Back to my regularly scheduled mucky life.
B.
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