You didn’t need to speak French to enjoy Houston’s 28th annual French-American Wine and Food Festival recently. You just had to be aware that tasting Georges Duboeuf’s Beaujolais Nouveau was not the focus. This year’s “Soiree Beaujolais & Beyond” was a signature event, drawing more than 1,000 guests to the JW Marriott. Local French restaurants, bistros and bakeries, together with non-French eateries, handed out savory samples of their best food. A slew of wine samples from the Beaujolais region in France included Beaujolais Villages. Unlike years past, this event featured wines from other French and Americans regions. California shined with generous servings of Cabernet, Merlot and Zinfandel. If you preferred to stay with the Beaujolais array, you sought out the strategically placed tables set up around the huge Marriott ballroom. There were plenty of wine glasses to help you mix and match a whole line of the newly-produced wines. Each year, in rural villages throughout Beaujolais, the Gamay grape is hand-picked, harvested,fermented and bottled as quickly as possible. The singular goal is to reach consumers around the world by the third Thursday of November. French law states that one minute after midnight on the third Thursday of November is when the sale, delivery and consumption of Beaujolais wines may begin. Globally, millions of bottles leave France for the annual soiree. What began as a simple tradition among bar keepers and villagers in the 1950s, has emerged as a worldwide marketing blitz. Thanks in good measure to entrepreneur Georges Duboeuf, a decades long champion of the wine and marketing campaign. Now, with French-American Chambers of Commerce in more than a dozen American cities, the young,red wine is enjoyed simultaneously by thousands of Beaujolais aficionados in Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Miami and a host of other cities. As a veteran attendee of the French-American Chamber of Commerce’s annual Dallas Beaujolais event, and an occasional attendee of Houston’s, I was sure I knew why the annual Beaujolais wine and food tasting event was launched. But according to the French-American Chamber of Commerce Houston, the goal has always been to assist local businesses. As such, the FACC’s goals are to promote French and American businesses and support those companies with trade needs. The FACC Houston, founded in 1977, has hosted the annual event for nearly 30 years. It has 150 members and two staffers. Membership is open to anyone, but professionals under age 30 pay only $50. Membership for older individuals and companies, French and non-French, is $150 and up. I have to admit, I’ve never been so wrong. I thought the goal of this annual event was to introduce wine lovers to the Beaulojais region and its wines. I thought as an aside, chambers used the event to showcase French cuisine, culture and music. This helps to explain why the ambiance at the Houston soiree was a la jazz, B.B. King Blues, R&B, Motown, the Pointer Sisters and Al Green. Judging from the gyrations by some, that was real cool. But one woman plugged her ears while running out of the ballroom with her escort in tow. It also explains why the silent auction was the centerpiece of the Houston event. Dozens of items donated by upscale French and American businesses enable the FACC to continue to host the annual event while giving to charity. If you’ve never attended a Beaujolais event, you can easily be attracted by the name itself. It conjures images of all things French. I’ve never been to France. So in the past, I had traveled there vicariously through this event. I’ll never forget my first soiree in the 1980s at the Plaza of the Americas in Dallas. Years after my first Beaujolais experience, I could count on being greeted by the music of French icons Edith Piaf or Jacques Brel. I was so smitten that I actually researched the wine region and wrote about it. In the early stages of my wine education, I learned that Beaujolais wines come from a bucolic region of France. Decades before it became the focus of an annual American wine tasting event, Beaujolais wines were consumed with much fanfare by local villagers. All that fanfare was magnified when native son and local winemaker Duboeuf came on the scene. Romaneche-Thorins, Duboeuf’s hometown, is now the Beaujolais epicenter for light, fruit-forward red wines. One reason the Beaujolais line of wines remains popular with locals is its drinkability. For Americans who may shun reds-for a variety of reasons-this line of French wines was the game changer. That means that unlike other red wines, you don’t have to swirl and smell. You don’t even have to really sip it. In fact, chugging it down is acceptable at the annual soiree. But make no mistake, you’ll feel the effects if you drink enough. The Beaujolais region is situated between the hallowed Burgundy regions and the Rhone Valley. It’s not far from the cities of Lyon or Dijon. My Dallas invitation included a colorful map illustrating this. As I left the event, I was told the FACC Houston didn’t produce an invitation this year. Evolution is inevitable. This I know. But I vowed to start planning to attend the Beaujolais in France next year instead.
