Anne just reminded me that today is Beaujolais Day. I know, I know, the wine is crap, the holiday is just a commercialized hype. It’s been three years now since I’ve had a glass of the stuff. Still, Beaujolais day in France always proved memorable. So I’ll reread my old posts about Beaujolais days past: here, here, and here.
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Ktismatics 
I don’t think it’s nearly all crap, but would agree that it often is, and very vinegarey sometimes. Recently Jack brought a Shiraz which I often like a great deal, it was almost like Robitussin. Worse that some of those flabby Zinfandels, which I now know to stay away from.
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I don’t think it’s crap either really — just ordinary table wine, which I’m happy to drink. It’s new wine, meant to be drunk immediately rather than aged in the cellar like vintage wine. The vinegar I’d think would result from nouveau Beaujolais that’s been sitting around in the bottle for a few years, as if it were something special. Beaujolais day is an end-of-the-harvest festival that’s been jazzed up. Americans aren’t as accustomed as the French to drinking wine just as something to drink. We used to buy $3 bottles of wine regularly and it was almost always pleasant. Interesting that French wine is always named after the region rather than the grape. They’re all blended wines, while Americans prefer single-grape wines — kind of like single-malt Scotch I suppose.
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The vinegariness was actually in a new bottle, sometimes it really is just crap to begin with–I was much younger and brought it from Paris and gave a bottle to a friend, so socially adept he informed me of the vinegarey taste! Well, that wasn’t the nicest reception of a gift I ever had, to be sure. I never think to get Beaujolais anymore, say just on the shelf, the ordinary bottles, but I do remember that it was very festive in Paris the year I was there, so we didn’t get too critical about it. There’s some other very simple wine that doesn’t identify even the grape nor region by Rene Jeaunnot, I think, just calls itself ‘red table wine’ or ‘white table wine’ that we thought quite all right, though, better than a lot of merlots, chardonnays, pinot grigios. The worst I think I had, when we were all student-y, trying to buy the cheapest, was Chilean or Algerian, or maybe both, literally undrinkable even if you were dying to get drunk. I don’t know much about whiskey, but single-malt is supposed to be the ultimate, isn’t it? I think Christian used to go to these overly precious little afternoons with just sipping single-malt in Lausanne, so I think that that’s supposed to be the best everywhere. Just realized I haven’t had hard liquor for maybe 10 years, even at a restaurant I’ll get something like a kir or Campari, although I remember liking gin-and-tonics for hot days in cafes, in places like you describe in south of France. Unless brandy is also ‘hard liquor’, I guess not. I like a lot of liqueurs, though I hardly ever have one.
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I don’t like drinking scotch or rum or bourbon, but I keep some around for sauces and desserts. Pureed parsnips are delicious with a little scotch for flavoring — a nice accompaniment for lamb chops.
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