Emily in France 🇫🇷 Let Them Drink Beaujolais!
The third Thursday of November is cause for celebration
Paris is far from the most holiday-oriented of cities. I’ve never had a trick-or-treater come by my home; Easter is evoked only in chocolate shops. Christmas lights are strung up on some of the pedestrian shopping streets, and we welcome a handful of fairly commercial Christmas markets, but it’s far more demure than London or Strasbourg or my hometown of New York, where Christmas seems to yell at you from every shop beginning the day after Halloween.
But we know how to holiday when it counts – especially when wine is involved – and the third Thursday of November is a particularly festive occasion, seeing Parisians taking to the streets, the cafés, the wine bars to sample perhaps the world’s most famous primeur wine.
Primeur wine is, in essence, baby wine, a new vintage permitted by AOC to be sold in the same year it’s harvested. With just a few months of aging before being bottled, these wines are characterized by a bright fruitiness that makes them particularly gluggable (glou glou, if you're French). And while there are over 50 such wines in France, none is more famous than Beaujolais nouveau.
Beaujolais is a region abutting Burgundy, though it has never enjoyed quite the prestige of the latter region, whose long-time governance by the oenophile Dukes of Burgundy led to extreme protection and control of the quality of the wines produced therein. Philip the Bold was particularly influential given his decree, in 1395, of which grapes could be grown in Burgundy. Today, the region still restricts grape varieties to just two white varieties – Chardonnay and Aligoté – and one red: Philip’s beloved Pinot noir.
Philip was the one to eschew Gamay, a hybrid between Pinot and the now-defunct Gouais Blanc that has since become the cornerstone of Beaujolais reds. Its natural fruity berry notes, compounded with the semi-carbonic maceration style prevalent in Beaujolais, results in extremely fruity wines that, when released as primeurs, have an almost candy-like quality to them.
I love Beaujolais villages, with its light, easy-drinking appeal (and not just because, as far as red wines are concerned, it goes particularly well with cheese). But Beaujolais nouveau, while easy to drink, is harder to love: the butt of many a joke, with most comparing its flavor to banana Runtz or Tagada strawberries. There’s even a Japanese tradition of bathing in it in dubious honor of its release.
That said, there are a few producers revitalizing the category, once maligned as pure marketing, to great aplomb – as I explored in detail a few years back for Culture Trip. And frankly, even if you don't like Beaujolais nouveau… the party is half the fun.
Cheese of the Week
I’m of two minds regarding cheeses that have been infused with other flavors. In some cases, like herb-encrusted goat cheeses, I can see (and taste) the value. In other cases, as with fluorescent pesto- or tomato-infused goudas, it almost seems as though the seasoning overpowers the cheese. But Hirel is a cheese I can get behind, a raw-milk tomme from Brittany infused with toasted fenugreek seeds, which lend the rich, nutty cheese a distinct flavor of walnut. It’s lovely all on its own, but it also makes a particularly tasty sandwich.
To discover more of my favorite cheeses, be sure to follow me on Instagram @emily_in_france, subscribe to my YouTube channel, and tune into the Terroir Podcast, where Caroline Conner and I delve into France's cheese, wine, and more one region at a time.
What I’m Eating
Disclaimer: I was a guest of the property for this meal.
There’s a new wave of neo-bistrots taking Paris by storm. Playfully aware of the history of the genre, these spots offer a modern approach, iwth bright colors and an explosion of kitschy décor evocative of grand-mère’s living room – if grand-mère were a particularly Instagram-aware hoarder. Menus typically boast updated versions of staples that hew just close enough to tradition where it counts. While I’ve had uneven experiences at these places, thus far, when I was recently invited to try Brasserie des Prés, I decided to give the category another look. More on the blog.
Where I’m Going
1. To Chez Georges (rue du Mail) with Mama Jean, who’s gracing Paris with her presence this weekend.
2. To the Van Gogh in Auvers exhibit at the Musée d’Orsay, which explores the final months of the troubled artist.
3. To my favorite wine bars for Beaujolais nouveau, bien sûr!
What I’m Doing
1. Signups for the next edition of the Nantes Writers’ Workshop are open! In the meantime, be sure to sign up for our newsletter to keep those creative juices a-flowing.
2. As for TERRE/MER, the cuisine-and-ceramics retreat I run with ceramicist Camille Drozdz, we’re eager to begin planning our next edition – and we need your help! If you’d like to join us, let us know your preferred dates with this quick poll.
What I'm Writing
1. Spend a day with Parisian café owner Xavier Denamur of the Marais’ staple Les Philosophes in this multi-media story for France Today.
2. These Bay Area bars feature elevated tiki cocktails, where bartenders take the ingredients seriously but keep the final product fun. For InsideHook.
3. Chicago restaurants and Midwestern wineries are embracing heirloom American grapes you’ve probably never heard of. For InsideHook
What I'm Reading
1. The short, urgent chapters of The Virgins certainly kept it moving, and yet I found myself putting it down time and again. The deterrent for me was often the voice; I couldn't help but spend quite a bit of time thinking about why the author chose to tell the story from such a distinct, distant, dislikeable POV. It couldn't just be in homage to Jeffrey Eugenides, though that must be part of it. I considered that it might be in an attempt to explore the obsession I so well remember from high school with campus stars: people you knew, that everyone knew, but that had no idea who you are; people that, in retrospect, you realize might not have felt, themselves, as though they were stars, though everyone nearly-worshipped them. But the book only began to glance upon this sensation; if evoking that sense was its goal, it seemed to be missing something, a reverence, maybe, for this other. Instead, the narrator is both distant and too-present in the minds of the characters he observes; the narrative stance never felt quite comfortable in what it knew and what it guessed.
2. This collection of essays reacting to the November 13 terrorist attacks – especially Lindsey Tramuta’s echo of the call tous au bistrot and Doreen Carvajal’s meditation on my favorite painting in the Louvre. In the New York Times.
3. This story about an unlikely friendship. In the Supersonic.
A bientôt !