As everyone knows, France has a small industry related to wine. By that I mean they have the second largest total area of vineyards (behind Spain, go figure), produce 7-8 billion bottles of wine each year and in 2005, French wine sales accounted for 17.6% of world exports (thank you wikipedia). You get the picture, a lot happens around wine here.
Last night was a little celebration of wine centered around a wine called Beaujolais Nouveau. Apparently every year, no matter when the gamay grapes are harvested, the new wine is introduced on the third Thursday in November. Bars have bands, there are specials on the wine, and some French bars have...gasp!...FOOD. Significant of course because usually you can't eat and drink at the same establishment if it isn't lunchtime or dinnertime. (I'm looking forward to some chicken nachos with a beer while watching a football game, when I get back to America, when you can eat whenever you want.)
We decided to celebrate the new wine at a little place that had a tent set up on the street and hay on the sidwalk for everyone to stand (and smoke) on. Smoking while standing on hay didn't seem all that safe to me, but whatever. The bar was selling hot dogs for 3 euro and everyone was bundled up drinking a red wine that had hints of banana. They told us it was raspberry, but I kept tasting banana bread. We did find out that while the wine is introduced every year at the same time, there are many diffiferet producers of the wine, so different bars have different bottles. The distinction is in the type of grape and the region of France. While others proclaim they sell Beaujolais Nouveau wine, unless it is from a specific region in France, it is an imposter. It is notoriously not that smooth, but we had no problem with two bottles, so thumbs up on Beaujolais Nouveau Thursday!
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