Georges Duboeuf, Beaujolais-Villages Nouveau (Beaujolais, Burgundy, France) 2009

A Joan Jett song sums up my feelings about this wine: "I Hate Myself For Loving You." Like the rest of the Wine Review Online team, I can’t stand the marketing hype for Beaujolais Nouveau, which is basically a barrel sample. When I lived in Japan people would pay more than $30 a bottle for it — it’s even on allocation. There are huge parties all over the world for it, and they’re the biggest wine parties some people ever attend. And it’s a barrel sample! To be fair, though, this is the best Beaujolais Nouveau I’ve ever had, the product of a long, warm, dry summer that got the grapes more ripe than usual. It’s surprisingly sophisticated for a nouveau, with crushed red plum flavor, notes of licorice and violet, and very mild tannins. It would be good with Thanksgiving dinner, and appropriate as a product of this year’s harvest. I wrung my hands before scoring it; philosophically, I’d rather drink a finished wine, but I did really like this, and it is the best of its type I’ve ever had.