Beaujolais-Villages Video Transcript
Written By: Anonymous on Mon, Dec 4th 2006
Brian Freedman: Welcome to the ClassicWines.com Weekly Wines Showdown; I am Brian Freedman.
Today we're going to be tasting two 2005 vintage Beaujolais Villages. One of them, our first one here, is from Joseph Drouhin - Joe Drouhin, whatever works for you.
Now, Beaujolais sort of has a bad reputation because most people think of Beaujolais Nouveau which is basically halfway between toilet water and let's say, while it is just grape juice, with just that that much alcohol in it. Most of the time it's pretty rank stuff, but its fun, calls for celebration. Any excuse to drink wine is fine by me. But the truth is, Beaujolais can be some great stuff.
After we have Beaujolais Nouveau, we have Regular Beaujolais -- this is in the order of ascending quality. Then we have Beaujolais Village like this one, and then we have the Beaujolais Cru, and these are wines that don't even say Beaujolais on the label, they'll say the name of the commune where the grapes are grown, like Fleurie, Chirouble, Moulin-a-Vent - just saying these words makes you sound very, very sexy and sophisticated. Anyhow, Beaujolais Village, pretty good stuff; usually very good value for the money. I like to drink mine with a little chill on them - great for the summer.
Now, the Drouhin here smells a whole lot like typical Beaujolais Village. I am getting this classic aroma of fresh, baked, banana bread. You're going to call me crazy here, but every time I have a Beaujolais Village, or a lot of the time, I get this aroma. It's very warming, it's very comforting, very typical of this kind of wine.
Wow! That's out of whack. The acid is so overpowering there; it makes all the fruit taste under-ripe; if anything, I am getting like under-ripe wild strawberries there. They make those big ones, the Driscoll Strawberries, the size of a head of cotton candy. These are the other ones, the ones they sell on the Farmers Market, they're ripe and and small. These are the under-ripe versions of that. I am not getting a whole lot in there at all; acid is completely throwing it off.
Wine number two here is the Louis Jadot Beaujolais Village - great label, isn't it? Now, Jadot is also a major, major name in Beaujolais - in Burgundy for that matter as well. This one is a bit darker in color; I don't know what that means, we'll see. Now, we smell this one, it smells a whole lot riper. This one smells to me like pureed strawberries, but they're ripe. So it's really not as overwhelming as the Drouhin was; well, on the nose, it's a whole lot more appealing.
It's not a bad wine - it's a very velvety texture on your tongue; it's richer, it's heavier, but it's not overdone. You still get that great hit of acid that you normally get from good Beaujolais Village. Is this a wonderful wine? Absolutely not - but we don't go to Beaujolais Village for wonderful wine, we go to Beaujolais Village for good value wine, inexpensive, and just easy to drink. Have this thing with a turkey burger, a veggie burger, whatever works for you. Have it with your cheerios in the morning. For the price, I think I paid less than $10 for this one -- at ClassicWines.com, like we say every week, $0.52.
Absolutely, the winner of this week's Wine Showdown, the Louis Jadot 2005 Beaujolais Village, a whole heck of a lot nicer than the Drouhin. But no matter which one you prefer, don't get bent out of shape about it. As we say every week, it's only grape juice.
For the ClassicWines.com Weekly Wine Showdown, Cheers.
