Beaujolais, the French Coca-Cola?

Beaujolais has been undergoing a quiet revolution. For years it was a high-profile fun wine, with ever-more outlandish stunts arranged to introduce the arrival of the “nouveau” every third Thursday of November.

The annual race to bring the new wine to market enlisted marathon runners, automobile racers and horse-drawn carriages, even parachutists, to see who could have the first bottles of the new wine. Parties were held everywhere to welcome the new wine.

In recent years, much of the carefully orchestrated hoopla has been toned down or shelved; last November in many cities, the 2007 Beaujolais nouveau arrived almost unnoticed. Singapore retailers generally conceded that Beaujolais was nowhere near as popular as it has been a decade ago. There also were rumors about oceans of the stuff being unsold and dumped, along with a widespread sense of gloom in the Beaujolais region.

So, recently I picked up the phone to talk to George Duboeuf, who knows about those things. Mr. Duboeuf is called the King of Beaujolais, probably because he sells more than 30 million bottles of the wine each year. He confirmed that Beaujolais is still prosperous, yes, but not as prosperous as other wine regions.

Beaujolais represents about 2 percent of all French wine production and about 5 percent of A.O.C. (Appellation d’Origine Controlée) production. A.O.C. wines are France’s best; they come from specified areas and are made in controlled qualities in specific grapes. In the early 1980s, Beaujolais represented almost 9 percent of A.O.C. production.

Since then, Beaujolais production has increased about 20 percent while in Alsace and Bordeaux it has doubled and in Champagne it has increased 120 percent! It’s not difficult to see what happened. While much of what is written is about wine deals with the minuscule luxury market, most wine drinkers are looking for good wines for everyday drinking and the competition at that level is fierce. Australia, Chile and Italy have moved into the market to the point where, around the world, they virtually dominate it.

Beaujolais, a name once synonymous with value, still makes plenty of wine but has given up some of its share of the market. To many, the offender was, or is, Beaujolais nouveau. In its time, it was one of the best marketing tools ever. By selling up to half of their annual production in November, two months after the harvest, the Beaujolais producers beat their competition around the world by six months and pay all their bills by Christmas!

What’s more, they created a carnival-like atmosphere for the arrival of “le nouveau” that had people screaming to buy it. But like all marketing gimmicks, the animated annual arrival of the nouveau wore thin. Consumers soon leaned that the “race” was contrived and the importers ran out of events to promote it. Moreover, the nouveau arrival created confusion. Each year, its arrival is followed in February or March by the arrival of the “real” Beaujolais; the wine that has evolved in the traditional fashion, spending the winter maturing in the vintners’ cellars.

Beyond that, the number of Beaujolais wines can be confusing. There are Beaujolais and the marginally better Beaujolais-Villages on top of the nouveau, plus the wines of 10 towns -all A.O.C. appellations- in the Beaujolais region that are allowed to use their own names on their best bottles. These are: Moulin-a-Vent, Chenas, Juliénas, Fleurie, Chiroubles, Brouilly, Cotes-de-Brouilly, Morgon, St. Amour and Régnié.

To muddy the waters further, most of those appellations are further divided into sectors that make their own claims to quality. For example, the Cotes de Py is said by some to be the best part of Morgon. Fleurie has 13 of those subdivisions, including La Madone and Grille-Midi.

Confusing?  Experts can explain at length on the qualities of the individual sites and the wines made from them, but the differences can be elusive to casual wine drinkers, most of whom prefer wines that go by their varietal, or grape names, like merlot and cabernet.

For varietal fans, Beaujolais is made exclusively from gamay, which the American wine writer Alexis Bespaloff has accurately described as “a thin-skinned, prolific, early ripening grape of fundamental inconsequentiality”. It is noteworthy to mention that Beaujolais also produces small quantities of rosé wines, made from gamay, and a fair amount of whites, made exclusively from chardonnay.

Beaujolais makers today are downplaying the “nouveau” phenomenon and emphasizing quality. “Vieilles Vignes” (Old Vines) and “Vinification a l’Ancienne” (Old Traditional Vinification) is seen more often on labels and some producers like Mr. Duboeuf are creating new lines. His recent “Prestige Cuvée”, with its elegant labels -like the labels of the Beaujolais from Louis Jadot’s “Chateau des Jacques” are an attempt to play down the rustic image of Beaujolais and to create a new market.

I like Beaujolais; I hope they succeed.

Christian Vanneque was head sommelier of La Tour d’Argent in Paris and
professor at L’Academie du Vin in Paris. He served as a judge at the
legendary 1976 Paris Wine Tasting.
He is the publisher of Bali’s Best Bets Guide since 2002. 
Contact: Christian@TheWineCircus.com

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