You are Invited to Beaujolais with the French #Winophiles

This month French Winophiles visit Beaujolais. Are you a blogger or Beaujolais winelover that would like to join us? Here is your ticket…all aboard!

Beaujolais is beautiful, festive and welcoming. Photo credit: Visit French Wine

Beaujolais is a wine region often noted for the late fall release of the new wine, which is celebrated and consumed during the year of its harvest. It’s called les Beaujolais Nouveaux (the new Beaujolais wines) and it is a playful event where wine, friends and fun are at the heart of the party. This year it is celebrated on November 17th. It seems like just weeks ago I published about the French wine harvest here on L’occasion, and here we are in early November talking about drinking it. Already? That’s the way of the occasion, which happens at 12:01 am on the third Thursday of November.

This event was never meant to be fancy; in fact it is said that the ‘holiday’ was created to generate excitement for the new vintage as soon as possible. In many parts of the world, this event is met with enthusiasm and open bottles, as this particular French wine is adored. Beaujolais wines (not all are gulped up during infancy) are regarded as reliably food friendly. This time of year, mention of food turns American thoughts to Thanksgiving and Beaujolais wines are indeed a welcome establishment on turkey tables.

Where is Beaujolais?

According to Wine Folly (which has published an excellent primer by Hilarie Larson) shares, “Beaujolais is kind of like the smallest house in the fanciest neighborhood. It’s bordered by Burgundy to the North; the Saône River (which leads to Côtes du Rhône) to the East; the ‘Gastronomic Capital of France’, Lyon, to the South; and the Monts de Beaujolais (the hills of the Massif Central) on the West. Beaujolais is just 34 miles long and 7-9 miles wide.”

According to InterBeaujolais, at Beaujolais.com, “Over mainly granite terrain, the Beaujolais Crus form a meandering path. From south to north, Brouilly is followed by Côte de Brouilly, Régnié, Morgon, Chiroubles, Fleurie, Moulin-à-Vent, Chénas, Juliénas and Saint-Amour.

The region has ideal growing conditions. It receives lots of sunshine and has granite-based soils that lend excellent structure to the wines. The Gamay grape is used to make all Beaujolais wines with the exception of white Beaujolais, or Beaujolais blanc, which is made of Chardonnay grapes.

Only manual harvesting is allowed in the Beaujolais region. Handpicking means that before being vatted, entire bunches are sorted to remove any bad grapes. This winemaking method is specific to the Beaujolais region.”

For more about Beaujolais, please visit here.

The French Winophiles

It’s time we get there, to celebrate the new wines and the meal wines. To guide our way I’ve hired a team of experts, known as the French Winophiles. Join us on November 19th at 10:00 am central time on twitter. We’ll be there under the hashtag #Winophiles. There we will chat about wine, food and travel in the gorgeous setting of Beaujolais.

We’ve been all over France this year, immersing into wine regions one at at time. For more on what I’ve published at L’occasion, as well as links to all the other writers please visit my Winophiles category.

Next year we’ll be rolling out something new, a scope of creative and curious proportions. Be ready to travel and explore with The French Winophiles in fresh ways with fresh perspectives.

How To Join Us

If you are a wine writer or blogger, this is your invitation to join in!

• Contact me to tell me you’re in: Include blog url, Twitter handle,  and any other social media details. If you know your blog post title, include that…but you can also send that a bit closer to the event. We’d just like to get a sense of who’s participating and give some shout-outs and links as we go. Contact me here.
• Send your post title to me by Tuesday, November 15th to be included in the preview post. I will prepare a preview post shortly after getting the titles, linking to your blogs. Your title should include “#Winophiles.”
• Publish your post between 12:01 a.m-8:00 a.m. EDT on Saturday, November 18th. You can always schedule your post in advance if you will be tied up that morning.
• Include links to the other #Winophiles participants in your post, and a description of what the event is about. I’ll provide the HTML code that you can easily put in your initial post — which will link to people’s general blog url — then the updated code for the permanent links to everyone’s #Winophiles posts.
• Get social! After the posts go live, please visit your fellow bloggers posts’ to comment and share. We have a Facebook group for participating bloggers to connect and share, too. If you need an invitation please let me know.
• Sponsored posts are OK if clearly disclosed. Please be sure to disclose if your post is sponsored or if you are describing wine or other products for which you have received a free sample.