It's Beaujolais Nouveau Day!

Flickr user wmliu

​Many are the stories about wines being laid away for decades, maturing into profound statements of the œnologist's art. Many are the legends of some bottle of hundred-year-old Château Machin-Chouette being discovered in a dank corner of an old wine cellar, with wine snobs gathered around to taste just a half sip of the 19th century.

Well, not all wine is meant to be socked away for retirement; the young wines from the Burgundy village of Beaujolais are meant to be drunk more or less practically straight off the vines, and every year on the third Thursday of November, the new year's Beaujolais, called Beaujolais Nouveau, is released to the world.

Today is that day; wine stores all over Orange County will receive shipments of Beaujolais today, to be released this afternoon. Uncork the bottle, pour out the first taste, and exclaim as they do all over the world today, "Le Beaujolais nouveau est arrivé !"

Beaujolais Nouveau is a light, easy-drinking red wine, and it goes well with cheese. (What a shock, right?) While Brie and Camembert seem to be a popular choice at Beaujolais parties, you can keep the sense of Burgundy terroir and the theme of young, just-made products with a round of Chaource, a slightly more pungent cousin of Brie.

Santé !