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Leamington Letters #4: Le Beaujolais nouveau n’est pas arrivé

18/11/2011

10 Comments

 

By now (11am on Friday morning), a significant proportion of the 50 million or so cases of Beaujolais nouveau which left the villages of Beaujolais at midnight will have arrived in the UK, and a fair amount will have reached Warwickshire. None of it will cross the threshold of Wilde’s.

This is not wine snobbery. This is a considered judgement.

Despite my occasionally vehement advocacy of the superiority of certain wines over others, I have only once been accused of being a wine snob. It was a party, some time ago. We were in the kitchen. A glass of red was thrust into my hand and it was clear that the wine was corked before I had taken a sip. As I put down the glass with an exclamation of disgust, a voice said: “Oh God, a wine snob.”

I was mortified, because I’m not: I would happily have drunk the offending wine had it not been corked. I was also surprised, because my accuser was an artist named Mary Riley, who was known for her trenchant views on art and artists. I tried to engage her in a discussion about one’s right – indeed, duty – to distinguish the good from the bad in all fields of human endeavour: art, literature, music, food, wine etc etc. But no. Some painters are better than others, some writers are better than others, some composers are better than others, but wine is wine. It is either red or white. (Kingsley Amis claimed that “Red or white?” was the most depressing question he was ever asked at a dinner party.)

The writer Rick Gekoski tellingly used a wine analogy when discussing the process of judging the Booker prize:

“You like Mateus Rosé better than Chateau Pétrus? No problem. You think it is a better wine? You're wrong. You're clearly without the experience, palate, or discrimination to make such a judgment.“

Rick went on to quote the Eliot phrase “the common pursuit of true judgement”, which was famously appropriated by Leavis, and is close to my heart. The importance of the common pursuit, and the collaborative process which it involves, is what I took from my education and what I believe is relevant and applicable today. Yes, even to wine.

One of the pleasures of our ownership of Wilde’s has been working with merchants, customers, staff and friends to select wines which satisfy taste and judgement (as well, of course, as commercial considerations). An even greater pleasure has been the creation of a wine list which attempts to explain those choices and to involve the reader/customer in the choice itself.

That process has been an education for which I am grateful to mentors such as Tim Hollis-Carroll. There are wines on the list which are not to my taste. But there is not a single wine which I do not judge to be one of the best of its kind, in its price range.

Which is why we will not be offering Beaujolais nouveau today. True, it is not to my taste. But more importantly, it is neither a good wine nor good value for money.

And if I have learned one thing in a lifetime of drinking wine, it is this: if it is not the former, it cannot be the latter - whatever the price. Can we not agree on that?

Today’s listening: gearing up for the Dylan gig in Hammersmith this weekend with the Rolling Thunder Review from Boston in November 1975.

10 Comments
Ann Wood
18/11/2011 04:36:42

Ah that takes me back to the heydays of the 1980s when Beauj Nouv was all the rage.....been there, done that ...for a few years and then gave up....life's too short to (willingly) drink wine that is absolutely not to ones taste - whatever it's called!

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Charlotte Ford
18/11/2011 08:36:56

Many decades ago I foolishly fell for the hype and bought an overpriced bottle of the stuff and offered a glass to Ken ,how dim of me;it nearly brought an abrupt end to our relationship.The wine was mediochre and I have suspected ever since that the French are loathe to drink it either.

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Lara
18/11/2011 08:50:08

Loving the blog just leaving budapest do you have any wise wine words on tokaji

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Steve Haywood
18/11/2011 09:19:33

Well said Max. I've thought of it as the French offloading gallons of muck annually on the English. Beaujolais nouveau has always been a great PR stunt!

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Dianne Taimsalu link
18/11/2011 10:00:55

Hello Max - have you settled back in your Island fastness? I am not particularly fond of vin nouveau, but this is not my point -simply, there are better vins nouveau in the Languedoc Roussillon area than anywhere in the Côtes du Rhone.

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Leon
19/11/2011 02:26:23

Far from being a great PR stunt, Beaujolais nouveau has, in the long term, been a disaster for the Beaujolais region as a whole. Viewed (and drunk) simply as an advance taste of the new vintage, there’s actually nothing wrong with BN at all - especially if it’s from a good grower. But source it cheaply, rush it thorough France, bounce it across the Channel, then dish it up in Leamington Spa the following day and how good is it ever likely to be?

It’s a pity, because (and I shall ignore those snorts of derision!) a good cru Beaujolais - St. Amour, Brouilly, Moulin à Vent, or even a simple Beaujolais Villages – can be a real delight. As it is, we have Beaujolais nouveau to thank for the fact that prudent growers now make sure that the word Beaujolais doesn’t appear on their labels – and that prudent (and pragmatic) wine-bar proprietors won’t have it on their lists.

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Rick Hough
19/11/2011 09:07:28

Honestly, I always thought Beaujolais Nouveau was an industry in-joke: "Let's see if we can get the mark to pony up extra money for a preview of the vintage", for which a couple of sips should be adequate. When a discernable fashion trend emerged, we all sort of giggled a minute and went back to finding things of which to make fun.

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myers
25/11/2011 02:57:17

I always thought Beaujolais Nouveau was great for oral hygiene - one sip and reach for the toothpaste

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Mary Riley
21/1/2012 03:52:03

Hi Max

Have no recollection of calling you a wine snob!

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Max Smith
21/1/2012 07:15:16

Mary!!!

I'm not sure whether I feel better or worse at your lack of recollection of the conversation: it has haunted me for a decade.

But given that the point of the blog is the common pursuit, I would love to buy you a glass - over which we could discuss the good, the bad and the ugly.

Thanks for getting in touch. Looking forward to meeting up.

Mx

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    Max Smith

    European writer, radical, restaurateur and Red Sox fan. 70-something husband, father, step-father, grandfather and son. Resident in Warwick, England.

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