The latest study on how we get to be us claims our biggest influence is neither parents not peers, but our siblings. I believe it. When I was growing up, my sister Robin, one year older, was God. My sun, my playmate, my critic and my arbiter of taste, from the moment she first pried the safety cover off my bassinet, removed her diaper, and crapped on my stomach. Naturally, I took her judgments to heart.
How often would I get excited about a new song or toy, only to find my enthusiasm crushed beneath the bulldozer of her contempt –“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, you moron!” she’d pronounce. And, oh! the shame! How could I have opened my heart to something so dopey? After a while, you learn to keep it shut.
So I sympathize with people afraid to name a wine. “Maybe this is really dumb,” they’ll tell me, “but I think I like, um, Pinot Grigio? No never mind….” Of course they’re on guard. Wine regions go in and out of fashion. Should you like big reds or elegant food wines? Sweet or dry? Cheap or expensive? Corks or screwcaps? No matter the choice, someone’s sure to pounce on it. “You like…that? You moron!”
Take Beaujolais, the region just below Burgundy. Not exactly cutting edge. The Gamay grape—hardy and high yielding—has suffered one blow after another to its dignity. In the 1300s, as the Black Plague wiped out a third of the wine market, the Duke of Burgundy ordered Gamay ripped out in favor of the nobler and far more finicky Pinot Noir.
Twice more it was purged, in the 17th and 19th centuries, but the cat came back. The most recent excess-Gamay solution is the whipped-up public relations flurry known as Beaujolais Nouveau. This harvest wine is held, by government regulation, until midnight of the first Thursday in November; when with much hoo-ha they release it, pandering to our universal need to be first. It’s fun wine, but tastes best with a shot of opening-night adrenaline.
On the other end of the spectrum are ten Beaujolais crus, from special vineyards: Régnié, Brouilly, Côte-de-Brouilly, Chénas, Chiroubles, Fleurie, Juliénas, Morgon, Moulin-à-Vent and St. Amour. They are richer, finer, and can even age a bit, though that’s not really the point.
In the middle is Beaujolais Villages, often charming, always a bargain. Fresh, simple wine, but, unlike New World juice, unquestionably vinous. A bowl-full of cherries, come home from Swiss boarding school to show off a newly polished wit and graceful gait in heels.
Served young and slightly chilled, Beaujolais is the ultimate food wine—not surprising from a region whose cuisine is best served with a defibrillator. By fermenting whole berries instead of mashing them, lively fruit is extracted without the astringent, sometimes bitter tannins of most reds. If you’re trying to coax a white-devotee to leap the yawning abyss, this is the perfect cross-over wine.
For centuries Burgundy and Bordeaux were closer to this style than they are today. The latter, dubbed Claret for its transparency was considered far superior to the great lurching reds of the south. After all, not all reds belong on a marble pedestal with a bronze plaque. The opposite of great need not be terrible, anymore than the opposite of Versailles is an outhouse. It could be, for instance, a thatched hut on a beach in Tahiti.
Best of all, Beaujolais is foolproof. It tastes good and it’s always in good taste. If your older sister says otherwise, it’s high time you stood up for yourself. It’s not like she’s squatting on your stomach.
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Speaking of my sister – check out her new book - Holy Unexpected - http://www.amazon.com/Holy-Unexpected-New-Life-Jew/dp/1586483080/sr=1-1/qid=1158417401/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-7133079-0703952?ie=UTF8&s=books about growing up Catho-WASP-Socialist-Agnostic and deciding to become a Jew, an apparently complex process involving duct-tape, herring and a snowboard. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you might even convert.
(Since we’re both writers—conditioned in-utero by the tap-tap-tap…DING! of our parents’ battered Remingtons—I had a choice: kill her or promote her. Fine. I'll promote her. But I still might stick pins in her stuffed animals.)
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