All in a name

It's a funny name for a wine, and it kind of means what you'd think. According to the producer's web site, the name represents what the ripe grapes seemed to be doing at harvest time, their juice bursting forth in abundance. Interesting imagery, to say the least.

We drank a Pisse-Dru nouveau with our pizza on Sunday. On the left is a bottle of pizza oil flavored with hot peppers.

But the wine is generally good. We're drinking this year's new wine and I find nothing to complain about. Except this: I've noticed over the years that Beaujolais nouveau is becoming more and more like the normal releases, almost indistinguishable (at least to me) from what might be sold later in the season. I remember drinking nouveau in the 1980s when it tasted thick and chalky, not at all like a finished gamay. That's what made it interesting. New wine was supposed to be unfinished, a preview of what the vintage might become later. Perhaps the making of Beaujolais has improved over the years such that both the new wine and the regular release are much better than they ever have been.  Or has there been a deliberate effort to make the new wines more palatable to sell more? I have no idea, of course, but if the new wine tastes just like the future release, what, then, is the point?