Beaujo-what?
Beaujolais. bow·zhuh·lay.
What is Beaujolais you may ask.
Only the quaintest and most wonderful under-celebrated winemaking region in France. Situated not far from its big and more well-known sister, Burgundy, the landscape is home to 10 Crus making wine (almost exclusively) from the delightful gamay grape.
Beaujolais (the wine not the region) is typically light-bodied, perfumey, high acidity, easy drinking and best served chilled on a hot summer's day a.k.a. 23 November!
Full disclosure: Father, our big business dad, may also have a soft-spot for Beaujolais thanks to the winemaking process the region made famous: carbonic maceration. The use of this style of anaerobic fermentation in coffee and the accompanying proliferation of exceptional, fruit-driven, comp-winning lots means we owe generations of Beaujolais winemakers a very tasty debt.
BeaujoLAIS Fest Archives
As a traditional harvest celebration, the winemakers of Beaujolais ferment part of the year's harvest for only a few short weeks before being released for drinking on the third Thursday of November. This far south of France though, no one drinks barrels of French wine on the third Thursday of November and we're not particularly big fans of wines fermented for a mere two weeks. We're more Drink-Barrels-of-Properly-Aged-French-Wine-On-Saturday-Afternoon-People.
Which is exactly what we've done for two years on the third Saturday of November. Here's photographic evidence. Come to Beaujolais Fest '24 to experience it all again or for the first time.
