Beaujolais is not bad.

When I lived in Paris after college, my friends and I would get together for a big party near the end of November, and it was not Thanksgiving. It was the arrival of the Beaujolais Nouveau: a young, lightly fermented wine made of Gamay grapes, released every November with a whole lot of publicity, advertising, and fanfare.

On the third Thursday of the month, “Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé!” signs pop up all over France, announcing a tradition dating back to the 1950s: the new Beaujolais is here, let’s drink it up!

Beaujolais Day is basically a marketing ploy to get wine drinkers around the world to try that year’s, usually not very good, Beaujolais Nouveau. In France, you determine exactly how bad the Beaujolais Nouveau is by the severity of the headache you have the day after guzzling it with friends. This is a job the French take very seriously. 
(Or at least they did 20 years ago.)

Celebrating the arrival of Beaujolais Nouveau every November may have been a great way to get foreigners to drink mediocre French wine, but it’s really done a number on Beaujolais’ reputation.
When most Americans hear the word “Beaujolais,” they think of cheap crap.

But there’s a lot more to know about Beaujolais:

>Beaujolais is a region to the south of Burgundy.
>Its red wines are mostly made with Gamay grapes.
(In Burgundy, reds are typically made with Pinot Noir grapes.)
>Beaujolais is light and fruity, and often best drunk young, but not always.
>Morgon, Moulin-à-Vent, Chénas, and Juliénas wines from Beaujolais can age for a decade or more, and start to taste more and more like fancier Burgundies the older they get.

In my family, we still love to pick up a few cheap bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau every year to throw on the table at Thanksgiving, just to see how (bad) they are. But, I definitely have some better Beaujolais wines in my cellar, and you might want to consider them too.

This wine is a 2020 Châteu des Jacques Moulin-à-Vent that James Suckling gave 93/100 points. Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate awarded it 92/100 points. I paid 15 euros for it when I visited Louis Jadot in Burgundy (they own Château des Jacques). It’s light, fruity, and smooth. A nice red for summer or lighter meals. I plan to drink some now, but save most of it for 5, and maybe even, 10 years.
Louis Jadot suggests cellaring it for 10+ years, when it should pair perfectly with meat or game.