Thursday Club with TalkRadio: Beaujolais Day!

Today is Beaujolais Nouveau Day! What is Beaujolais day? Well, Beaujolais is a wine region in France where the red wines are made from the Gamay grape, but you can also get a few whites and pinks too. Beaujolais Day happens on the third Thursday of November every year and it’s when the young wines of Beaujolais are all released. It’s a tradition and in the UK, there has always been a funny sort of race to bring the first nouveau wines back into the country from France. (Good luck doing that this year). These nouveau wines are bottled and sold within just six to  eight weeks of the grapes being picked.

Beaujolais fell out of favour during the eighties over here as people assumed that all Beaujolais was like the nouveau style, which is very juicy and bright, with a strong flavour of strawberry bubblegum. It’s meant to be drunk within a few months of its life and is deliberately youthful in style.  Beaujolais proper however, means gorgeously silky, elegant red wines that are crisp and refreshing, not totally unlike good French Pinot Noir. The style is very much in vogue again now people are reaching for less weighty, less alcoholic, less oaky red wines. Think wild strawberry, raspberry and spice with some autumnal, leafy notes. 

Don’t forget that there are several quality levels in Beaujolais: Start with the bouncy nouveau, then move up to straight Beaujolais. Above that, you have Beaujolais-villages and then finally, there are ten special Beaujolais ‘cru’, each named after a specific village and they all have their own characteristic take on the regional style. Here’s a bit more about that. 

Three Beaujolais wines to try:

Château de Belleverne, Beaujolais Nouveau, Beaujolais-Villages 2021

This wine shows exactly how far we’ve come with Beaujolais over the last twenty years. It’s a nouveau - from a villages producer! Basically, that means it’s actually good. 

Made in the traditional, carbonic macerated style using concrete vats, this wine is a classic BH: a light and fruity red wine made from Gamay grape. Best served slightly chilled at 13°c. The 2021 vintage is available for pre-order with delivery on Friday 19th November.  Priced at £13.50 per bottle, order six bottles or more for £12.00 per bottle.

Find it at Wickhams Great British Wine Merchant here.

Domaine de Roche-Guillon, Fleurie, 2017

Fleurie in the north of the region is the lightest, most elegant of the Cru with a perfumed, silky, style. Don’t let the light body fool you though; these wines can be very complex and interesting flavour-wise and they can age surprisingly well, turning our gorgeously moreish Autumnal flavours. This one is made by a family-owned domaine who don’t filter their wines for more texture, vibrancy and flavour. 

Find it for £14.75 Sandhamswine.co.uk

Château du Moulin-à-Vent, Cuvée ‘Couvent des Thorins’

Bordering Fleurie in the far north of the region is the Moulin-à-Vent Cru. ​​Wines from here make some of the most concentrated and tannic Beaujolais there is - a million miles from the nouveau style. These are great ones to age a bit, becoming more earthy, and savoury as they mature. This one is big but supple and ripe.

Find it for £20 at Stannary wine

Thursday Club with talk RADIO: White Wine from Rueda, Spain

What and where is DO Rueda?

Nestled up in the central-north part of Spain, with Galicia to the west and hugging the northeastern corner of Portugal, we find the wine region of Rueda. It forms part of the greater Castilla y Léon area and was the first of the 9 official regions within it to receive its own delimited status, earning the title ‘Denominación de Origen’ (or ‘DO’ for short), where strict rules around quality keep standards high. 

DO Rueda is most famous these days for producing zesty, fresh and fruity, un-oaked white wines made largely from the Verdejo grape, which considers Rueda to be its spiritual home. Sauvignon Blanc is it’s wing-man and a few other white varietals are now permitted into the blends, namely Viura, Palomino Fino, Viognier and Chardonnay. More experimentation is happening however with how these wines are made - and with the wines below, we can taste the difference! 

Diez Siglo Rueda Verdejo

Let’s start with Verdejo. This is a classic example of type: vibrant and refreshing, with notes of hay, guava, peach and orange-lemon citrus. Catch that characteristic hint of fennel on the finish too. Yum!

Find it at Amps Wine Merchant for £9.80 a bottle.

Excellens Sauvignon Blanc 2020

Next up, let’s see what Sauvignon can do in Rueda. Bright and clean again with its famous pale green tinge, this is a fruitier style of the grape, with powerful notes of cut grass, apple, blossom, tropical fruit and herbs. We can also so a creamier weight here thanks to some ageing of the wine on its lees (dead yeast cells left over from alcoholic fermentation). 

Find it at Fine Wines Direct UK for £9.89 mixed 6 price. 

Amador Diez 2015

Here’s what happens in Rueda when you add some age and some oak. It was named in tribute to the winery’s (Cuatro Rayas) former president, Amador Diez de Íscar. The top of this producer’s tree, this wine is produced from the best parts of their ancient, 100 year plus pre-phylloxera vineyard. Hand made at just about every level including bottling and in very limited quantities, this is a wine made to age. If you love white Rioja, you’ll love this! Think spicy orchard fruits, quince, honey, toast and spice, all with a cool, saline kick. A fantastic splash-out bottle. 

Find it at Ultracomida for £34 a bottle.

Read the full article on DO Rueda here.