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Beaujolais, Shedding the New for the Old

By Frank J. Prial (NYT) 1023 words

ROMANÈCHE-THORINS, France -- BEAUJOLAIS has been going through a quiet revolution. For years it was a high-profile fun wine with ever-more outlandish stunts to introduce the arrival of the ''nouveau'' every November. The annual race to bring the new wine to market enlisted marathon runners, automobile racers, horse-drawn carriages, even parachutists, to see who could have the first bottles of the new wine. Parties were held everywhere -- Paris, New York, Sydney -- to welcome the new wine.

In recent years, much of the carefully orchestrated hoopla has been toned down or shelved and last November, in many places, the 2002 Beaujolais nouveau arrived almost unnoticed.

New York retailers generally conceded that Beaujolais was nowhere near as popular as it had been a decade ago. And too, there were rumors about oceans of the stuff being unsold and dumped, along with a widespread sense of gloom here in the Beaujolais region. And all this well before the current diplomatic divide between the United States and France.

So I took a train down here from Paris to talk to Georges Duboeuf, who knows about these things. Mr. Duboeuf is called the King of Beaujolais, probably because he sells 30 million bottles of the wine each year.

As if to forestall any questions I might have about the local economy, or his share of it, anyway, he took me first -- after a solid Beaujolais lunch of course -- to a new, multimillion-dollar Duboeuf winery going up across the road from the company headquarters. With its Gallolike rows of gleaming wood and steel fermenters, it almost smelled of prosperity. From a visitors' deck on the roof, the timeless beauty of the Beaujolais region spread out before us -- there, Moulin-à-Vent, and just behind it, Chénas and Juliénas, and to the west, Fleurie and Chiroubles. The vines were still wintry brown but splotches of yellow, the first spring flowers, were everywhere. Off to the east, the haze softened and almost obscured the majestic Alps.

Harsh economic questions fade into insignificance in such a setting -- and, indeed, everywhere is the unmistakable look and feel of well-being.

Prosperous, yes, but not as prosperous as other wine regions. Beaujolais represents about 2.15 percent of all French wine production and about 5.37 percent of A.O.C. -- appellation d'origine contrôlée -- production. A.O.C. wines are France's best; they come from specified areas and are made in controlled quantities from specified grapes. In the early 1980's, however, Beaujolais represented almost 9 percent of A.O.C. production. Since then, Beaujolais production has increased about 20 percent while in Alsace and Bordeaux it has doubled and in Champagne it has increased 114 percent.

It's not difficult to see what has happened. While much of what is written is about wine deals with the minuscule luxury market, most wine drinkers are looking for good wines for everyday drinking and the competition at that level is fierce. Australia and Italy have moved into the market to the point where, around the world, they virtually dominate it.

Beaujolais, a name once synonymous with value, still makes plenty of wine but has given up some of its share of the market. To many, the culprit was, or is, Beaujolais nouveau. In its time, it was one of the best marketing tools ever. By selling up to half of their annual production in November, two months after the harvest, the Beaujolais producers beat their competition around the world by six months. And they paid all their bills by Christmas.

What's more, they created a carnival-like atmosphere for the arrival of the nouveau that had people clamoring to buy it.

But like all marketing gimmicks, the boisterous annual arrival of the nouveau wore thin. Consumers soon learned that the ''race'' was contrived and the importers ran out events to promote it.

Moreover, the nouveau arrival created confusion. Each year, its arrival is followed in February or March by another, the arrival of the ''real'' Beaujolais, the wine that has evolved in the traditional fashion, spending the winter maturing in the vintners' cellars. Beyond that, the number of Beaujolais wines can be confusing. There are Beaujolais and the marginally better Beaujolais-Villages on top of the nouveau, plus the wine of 10 towns in the Beaujolais region that are allowed to use their own names on their best bottles.

In addition to Moulin-à-Vent, Chénas, Juliénas, Fleurie and Chiroubles, they are Brouilly, Côtes de Brouilly, Morgon, St.-Amour and Régnié.

To muddy the waters further, most of those appellations are further divided into sectors that make their own claims to quality. For example, the Côte de Py is said by some to be the best part of Morgon. Fleurie has 13 of those subdivisions, including La Madone and Grille-Midi.

Confusing? You might say. Experts can expound at length on the qualities of the individual sites and the wines made from them, but the differences can be elusive to casual wine drinkers, most of whom prefer wines that go by their varietal, or grape names, like merlot and cabernet.

For varietal fans, Beaujolais is made exclusively from gamay, which the wine writer Andrew Jefford has accurately described as ''a thin-skinned, prolific, early-ripening grape of fundamental inconsequentiality.''

Beaujolais makers today are downplaying the nouveau phenomenon and emphasizing quality. ''Old vines'' is seen more often on bottles and some producers like Mr. Duboeuf are creating new lines. His new Prestige Cuvée, with its elegant labels -- like the labels of the Beaujolais from Louis Jadot's Château des Jacques -- are an attempt to play down the rustic image of Beaujolais and to create a new market.

I like Beaujolais; I hope they succeed.

By the way, the 2002's now in the shops are mostly excellent. The 2000 Beaujolais were good, as well. The 2001's not so good.