Drinking mid-week

I have a recognizable tendency to involve myself in things I know nothing about. There are two main reasons for this. For one, I'm lazy, and secondly, I enjoy the element of surprise. This is generally how I engage in travel, with loosely set plans and expectations. I prefer for the experience to create itself, rather than accepting the difficult task of creating an experience.

Which brings me to wine. Last night, against my better judgement, I went to celebrate "le Beaujolais Nouveau." My colleagues at the lycee were talking about it all week, and I honestly had no idea what it was. "Sure thing! See you there." All I knew was that le Beaujolais was a wine..so maybe a wine party? A solid excuse to get drunk on a Thursday? Sounds good to me.

So after a long day of classes, I rode with my friend to Vichy, and we met about ten other teachers at a bar called Le Gaulois, just in front of the train station. The bar was packed, and by the time we arrived, every table had several bottles of Beaujolais emptied. We caught up quickly, and I have to admit...the taste wasn't great. The type of wine that tastes smooth at first, and then  bites back as you swallow. I'm no wine snob (maybe two notches above the boxed wine club) but I wasn't too impressed. But the energy was undeniable, it was karaoke meets St. Patty's Day, meets freshman year frat party.

It turns out I wasn't too far off in my assumptions, Le Beaujolais Nouveau is a distinct type of beaujolais wine, made from German grapes grown in the Beaujolais region of France. It is fermented for only a few weeks and then released on the third Thursday of November, creating a surge in sales and public drunkenness. Le Beaujolais is meant for immediate consumption and not for keeping. It is often criticized for it's "simple" taste, but in fact it is supposed to taste "young, fresh, and fruity."

So in short, even though the wine was sub-par and I felt like hell waking up at 6 a.m. this morning, I love the way that France celebrates. Everything from a birthday to the arrival of a new wine is always a grande affair. Maybe it's just an excuse to get drunk, but to me it seems a wonderful way to appreciate life.