Do you remember those crazy line-ups at the SAQ on the third Thursday of November? Always boggled my mind. Why would anyone line up for some of the most artificially concocted wine of the world, the so-called Beaujolais Nouveau? Those bizarre aromas of banana and candy still haunt me. What started off as a humble way to celebrate the end of harvest and turned into a juggernaut of sales and marketing that was unparalleled in the industry.

What happened?

Beaujolais Nouveau started off as a local phenomenon in the bars, cafes, and bistros of Beaujolais and Lyons. Each fall the new Beaujolais would arrive with much fanfare. Pitchers were filled from the growers’ barrels; wine was drunk by an eager population to slake its thirst. It was wine made quickly with the aim to drink something easy and refreshing while the good stuff was taking its time. Eventually, the government stepped in to regulate the sale of all this quickly transported, free-flowing wine.

In 1938 regulations and restrictions were put into place to restrict how the Nouveau was being made, sold and marketed. In 1951, these regulations were revoked by the region's governing body, the Union Interprofessional des Vins de Beaujolais (UIVB), and the Beaujolais Nouveau was officially recognized. The official release date was set for November 15th. Beaujolais Nouveau was officially launched. What was initially a local tradition had gained so much popularity that the news of it reached Paris. The race was born. It wasn't long thereafter that the word spilled out of France and around the world. In 1985, the date was again changed, this time to the third Thursday of November tying it to a weekend and making the celebration complete. But wherever the new Beaujolais went, importers had to agree not to sell it before midnight on the third Thursday of November.

Enter the Dragon

Georges Duboeuf, the largest negociant in the region, had launched a juggernaut of a campaign that tirelessly promoted Beaujolais and especially the very profitable Beaujolais Nouveau. More than a fifth of its annual production, about 4 million bottles, is Beaujolais Nouveau. In the last 45 years, sales had risen from around a million bottles to more than 70 million bottles worldwide. That’s a lot of banana juice flavored with “bonbon anglais”.

The wine itself may have been a harmless fruity concoction, but the demand for an ocean of Nouveau created serious problems for winemakers. In order to satisfy this seemingly insatiable demand, growers introduced chemicals into the vineyards, picked early at minimal ripeness to avoid risks, and then compensated by chaptalizing, a legal process of adding sugar to the grape juice to increase the alcohol content which amplifies artificiality. They would maximize yields, which ultimately dilutes wines, and they would make the wines according to the standardized recipes of the négociants, who bought most of the wine from the growers to be sold under their own labels. Selected yeasts were used en masse, specifically 71B-1122, to ensure prompt fermentations and a standardized aromatic profile.

When times were good, nobody much cared. But now that the nouveau fashion has diminished — nouveau is now about 30 percent of Beaujolais production — growers in the lesser regions of Beaujolais are stuck with an oversupply of poor wine. And here begins the curse: what was once a region synonymous with quality that rivaled Burgundy had devolved into a bastion of shitty wine. The world was now stuck with an image of insipid wine meant to be drunk immediately. And frankly, I could not even stand the though of drinking a “Beaujolais” because my assumption was that ALL Bojo was made in this fashion and I would have nothing to do with it.

Enter the Guru

Jules Chauvet, considered by many as the father of natural winemaking in France, was a rare combination of winemaker, research chemist, and supremely gifted taster. He argued for naturalness in wine from a position of scientific expertise and immense practical experience. It was the calm conclusion of a life dedicated to making, tasting and understanding wine. And he didn't just argue for natural wine. He explained exactly how to make it. His few published works have become textbooks for young natural winemakers. He also crafted the industry-standard tasting glass, the INAO, and helped create a framework for a formal approach to wine tasting.

Appalled at what was happening in his native Beaujolais, Chauvet called for a return to organic farming using compost instead of chemical fertilizers, vinification without added sulfur (if need be, at the bottling stage only), and fermentations with indigenous yeasts. He also advocated carbonic maceration for Gamay on granite soils, which prompted a following by what became known as The Gang of Four by Kermit Lynch, led by Marcel Lapierre in Morgon. Along with Guy Breton, Jean-Paul Thévenet, and Jean Foillard (I would also add Jean-Claude Chanudet), these vignerons led the way for a revival that would help save the appellation from a disastrous decent into the large-volume making of poor quality wine with no soul. And their wines made me fall in love with Bojo.