Beaujolais Nouveau Day at Nine O'Clock Wines

For years the restaurant industry has celebrated this day on it's actual date (the Thursday before Thanksgiving) to kick off and cheers the beginning of the holiday season. Last year we brought this celebration to you, opening up Lawrenceville Market House for an evening of snacks and wine. We're doing it again, this time on Friday November 22 from 4-7pm with MORE wine and snacks than before. Come down to the shop for glasses (and bottles!) of the newest vintage from producers Remi Dufaitre, Las Jaras, Terres Dorées, and Domaine de Cornillac! We'll also have French snacking foods, including cheese from our amazing friends up at Chantal's cheese This possibly-new-to-you holiday was once marked at the end of the harvest but is now officially celebrated on the third Thursday of November every year. The holiday as we know it today was created in 1951, when some clever marketers decided the best way to drum up excitement for wines from the Beaujolais region was to hold a race from Beaujolais to Paris to see which winemakers could deliver their new vintage first. By 1971, the race was a widely covered national event. Beaujolais Nouveau is made with the gamay grape, a fruity, red variety that winemakers ferment with a special process called carbonic maceration to bring out its flavors. Carbonic maceration is a process where grapes are put in the fermentation tank as whole clusters, the tank is sealed and carbon dioxide is pumped in, leaving the grapes to crush themselves under their own weight in a carbon-rich environment. This process brings out highly fruity, almost bubblegum-like flavors in the wine. Because of the light, fresh style of this way of making gamay, Beaujolais Nouveau is considered an excellent wine to pair with the heavy, harvest foods of November and December.