Prosecco Harvest Cocktail, cuz Beaujolais Nouveau Sucks
What goes best with the news of Tom DeLay’s arrest? Bubbles, of course! Here’s to you Tommy!
I’ve been racking my brain, trying to come up with a replacement harvest celebratory cocktail. A replacement for Beaujolais Nouveau that is. Long time readers of this blog will know that not ever having to hock that overrated worthless piece of shit wine is one of my Top 5 Best things about getting out of wine retail.
Harvest Cocktail
Prosecco
Olio Novello (first press olive oil of the season)
Fresh oregano
Golden Raisins
Madiera
Pre-soak the raisins in Madiera (or water). Take a glass of not-so-dry Prosecco (cheap, dry bubbles won’t work as well) and add a 1 count of oil, a few bruised oregano leaves, and a couple of raisins.
Not only does the oil give good aroma when added to the bubbles, the raisins also go up and down and up and down. Weeeeeeeeeee! Taking the last swig of the oily symbols of harvest can be fun, too. Like eating the worm.
Tis the season, and I love thinking of new stuff to add to cheap bubbly. It’s fancy, but easy. I like to have a bunch of bubbles on ice for a party, then have a condiment tray, kinda like a sundae bar. I candy shit, make extracts and put them in test tubes, and have little beakers of juices like POM. I know. I’m so fuckin cute.
My favorite Prosecco and other off-dry bubbles:
Prosecco: Col Vetorez, Adami, Bortolomiol, Canella, Mionetto P. di Valdobbiadene, Ruggeri, Toffoli
Monmousseau Brut Etoile
Le Berceaux Blanquette di Limoux
Scharffenberger NV Brut
Lucien Albrecht Cremant d’Alsace
Awe, come on? Why am I so hard on Beaujolais Nouveau? It’s just for fun, they say. Bullshit. It’s just marketing. If it was just for fun, it’d be a fun $6 a bottle. But most are pushing $10 and up these days.
Insider info on the Nouveau — It’s just a Hallmark holiday, the Ashlee Simpson of wine, as appetizing a concept as McSushi, and one of those only when in France things. Retailers have to buy the wine without tasting it, something I never liked to do. Some retailers PRE-BUY 100’s of cases of this wine that drops on your doorstep a week before Thanksgiving and basically turns into an ugly stepsister the day after Christmas. B.N. doesn’t live long, even if it’s hopefully completed fermentation before bottling. Many come with a scuzzy residue. Most distributors are REQUIRED to purchase a certain amount of a winery’s Beaujolais Nouveau. So what do you think they’re going to say? Of course it’s delicious. Of course it’s fun. Of course everyone likes it. But in the last two years, this shit has gotten worse and worse. All of it? All of it I tried (at least 25 per vintage). Mass production has led to mass sucking. I wouldn’t even make Sangria with it. I’d sooner buy Carlos Rossi. That’s right. There, I said it. Somebody goddamn had to.
It’s all a fake marketing scheme to support a fake market, created to support quick cash flow. As a retailer, I used to buy small amounts, then bulk up on the ones I thought were the best after the fact. The best of the crap, that is. No more. I know I have friends who have to sell the stuff, and I feel for them. But this is one of those wine as INDUSTRY things I just can not placate.
October 21st, 2005 at 6:03 pm
do you remember the nouveau about ten years age that had the peel-off “nouveau” designation on the neck so retailers could remove it and sell it as regular beajolais bottlings? same shitty juice, but more more salable after christmas…
to play devil’s advocate, there are a few producers out there that do not make a nouveau, but simply bottle a small quantity of their regular production very early in order to offer a “nouveau” wine for the fake holiday. i guess the only difference is the truncated bulk aging. still its sad that producers who won’t stoop to the level of producing shit for shit’s sake feel the need to release anything at all two months after harvest.
October 21st, 2005 at 6:04 pm
p.s. i hate even offering it to people so i just don’t. makes the boss real happy
October 21st, 2005 at 6:28 pm
I’m going to make that cocktail first thing, but with leftover viognier grapes that are turning to raisins on the vine!
October 21st, 2005 at 10:37 pm
d, I was thinking of you as I was railing on the stuff.
Johny, Lucky!
October 21st, 2005 at 10:40 pm
thanks for fighting the good fight. can you help me and t with washington syrah nouveau? only $42/bottle!
October 22nd, 2005 at 5:43 am
For the first year EVER, my boss and I have decided to JUST SAY NO to Georges De Booof! Gawd, I can’t tell you what a wonderful feeling it is! Oh, we’ll still be loaded up with palates of bo-shit-lais, but this year, we get to suggest to our guests that if they’re looking for DeBooooof, there’s a 7-11 right down the street. Ah, the little triumphs…
October 22nd, 2005 at 10:29 am
See, this is why we need you. Last year, in the restaurant where I cook, our wine bitch kept going on and on about Beaujolais Nouveau. When it finally came in, most of the kitchen staff looked at each other like, “What is this shit?” Our boxed cooking wine that sits on the shelves for weeks and wks is better. But the watiers and the sommelier kept oohing and ahhing about, “Isn’t this fantastic, Nouveau in Novemmer, all we need is some rilletttes!” and shit like that. I am convinced they were all saying it because they were all saying it. You know? No one wanted to say what we were all thinking in the kitchen. God, this wine sucks.
You are the first wine person I’ve seen who cinfirms my suspicions. Because you call em out and remind us it’s all subjective bullshit. I thought I was crazy because I didn’t understand wine. You’ve taught me to just dirnk the wine and say what I think and not give a crap.
Now I feel confident. I’ve got a good palate. I don’t know why I was so scared. And boy do I love contradicting our snobby wine girl. And for that, I thank you.
August 11th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Late answer to that…but very interesting…how you do exactly like other gurus (that I won’t name)…like “my opinion is the only one that counts, others are just people that have no ideas and get influenced”.
Very open-minded!!! Congratulations!!!
Oh, by the way, why only shitting about Beaujolais Nouveau wines…coz’ there’s no shit wines anywhere else, say..in the US or any other country?