Discover Beaujolais in 5 minutes

Learn about Beaujolais and its wines in 5 minutes with Erik Segelbaum!

@disoverbojo
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Beaujolais it is almost as much fun to say as it is to drink so let’s spend a few minutes talking about what makes one of my favorite wine appalachians in the entire world so fantastic firstly let’s explore where in the world we are if you didn’t already know it we are

Right here in france specifically here where the southern part of burgundy meets the northern part of the rhone valley and it is right here where there is an amazing confluence of geographical and climatic factors that give beaujolais its signature one of the most amazing things about this location is the confluence

Of three different winds you’ve got the wet atlantic currents coming in from the west you’ve got the cool continental breezes coming down from the north and the warm uplifting mediterranean winds coming from the south and they all come together right in the heart of beaujolais which is one of the

Factors that makes the terroir beaujolais so magical so now that you know where beaujolais is let’s look at a brief historical timeline of how we got to where we are today first there’s the 13th century this is the first recorded mention of beaujolais as a region so you know that since then

People been recognizing the quality of wines that are coming from this part of the world then fast forward a little bit of a jump but i think you can follow along with me to 1937. this is when the appalachian the aoc of beaujolais was first brought into its official recognition

Fast forward again to 1951 this is when beaujolais nouveau was invented as a fun way to put beaujolais in the mines and on the tables of consumers and it’s been gracing every thanksgiving ever since moving forward we have 2009 where a major terroir study was done of the

Vineyards to help codify and classify what makes them so extraordinary and that brings us all the way to today where beaujolais is about to become your new favorite wine that is if it wasn’t already so now that we know a little bit about where we are and a little bit of the

Timeline of how we got here let’s talk about some of the other things that make beaujolais so sensational we’re talking about wine so of course we have to talk about the vineyards right first and foremost there are two iconic grapes the red grape game makes up 98 of beaujolais vineyard holdings but don’t

Forget about that magical white grape chardonnay in fact most people don’t realize but there are some hidden gems in beaujolais in the form of beaujolais blanc and beaujolais rose so even though we think about the red wines of beaujolais there is so much magic happening in the

White and pink wines coming from that same region and i promise you will not be disappointed you have my word and you can trust me i’m a sommelier now let’s talk about where they’re grown the soils in beaujolais are incredibly varied there are nearly a thousand or maybe

Even over a thousand different types of soil structure there and it’s all based mostly on granite especially in the cruise and what makes granite so exceptional is the way that the vines react to it as a subsoil and the way that they pull flavor from the earth more so than anywhere else and

This is true anywhere in the world where there’s granite now in addition to what farmers and wine growers are doing in the vineyards there is also an entire environmental and community-mindedness about beaujolais there are a number of programs that exist there like the hve which is like a high environmental efficiency program

Biodynamics and organics are popular everything about how the vines are tended and grown in beaujolais is done so with an absolute respect for the land and for the environment so that they’re not just taking from the earth but also giving back so let’s look at the major appellations first and foremost there is

Beaujolais and this just means that the grapes come from anywhere within the beaujolais appellation as a whole you can consider this the festive expression then more specifically as we get into expressive there is beaujolais village this comes from one of 38 designated villages in beaujolais here they are

Did you get it good and then there are the 10 crews of beaujolais while beaujolais and beaujolais village can be seen as the festive and expressive you can look at the 10 crews of beaujolais as the exceptional so in order to help you better and more easily understand the crews of beaujolais

I’ve developed a series of alliteratives 10 words one per crew that will help you better understand what these wines are like in mind and in mouth and here they are there’s brewery and the kota brewery which are bouncy morgan is massive grenier is regal fleury is floral shirubh is chewy

Udonavon is monstrous santamore is savory juliana is juicy and chena is crunchy and there you have it ten words to easily convey how truly expressive and exceptional the crews of beaujolais really are so now that you understand a little bit more about what beaujolais is where it’s from and what makes it so

Exceptional there’s one more thing you should understand about beaujolais and that is how it expresses the spirit of sharing or as we like to call it bojonemy bojanami is where beaujolais gastronomy and conviviality all come together it’s about sharing a bottle or a glass it’s about sharing a meal or a table

It’s about sharing the warmth of your home of your heart and that is one of the things i love so much about bojanami the idea is that beaujolais can be festive it can be expressive it can be exceptional it’s often all of those things but in the words of paul baucus the best

Bottles come into existence when we share them with friends and that my friends is beaujolais