Should I serve a Beaujolais Nouveau chilled or at room temp?!
Answers: This is a great question. Beaujolais Nouveau, although a red wine, from the red grape known as Gamay, should not be served at room temperature. The convention for reds is to serve them at room temperature, but even this warrants consideration as room temperature where I live is 73-74 degrees and the proper serving temperature for most reds is 62-64 degrees. That being said, you asked specifically about Beaujolais Nouveau, which should be served slightly chilled at about 55 degrees, which can be about 10-15 degrees above the average temperature coming straight out of the fridge. Another way to try to get it slightly chilled is to fill a bucket with water and toss in just a few ice cubes, not like you would chill a bunch of beers, just enough to get the wine at that slight chill which gives you the most out of this very light, food friendly red wine!
lightly chilled @ 55 degrees.
Optimal Wine Serving Temperatures :
White Wines: 45-50 °F or 7-10 °C
Red Wines: 50-65 °F or 10-18 °C
Rosé Wines: 45-55 °F or 7-13 °C
Sparkling Wines: 42-52 °F or 6-11 °C
Fortified Wines: 55-68 °F or 13-20 °C
Beaujolais Nouveau Debuts in Less than a Week!
As the clock strikes midnight on the third Thursday of November, the new vintage of Beaujolais, Beaujolais Nouveau, is released to the world! Over 60 million bottles make the trek to Paris for worldwide distribution, of which Germany is the leading importer. This is a young wine (only 6 weeks old), grown from the Gamay grape, and is very fruity, light-bodied, and virtually tannin-free making for an extremely easy-to-drink red wine. It is best served chilled to really bring the fruit forward and is a popular complement to Thanksgiving dinners, in part due to its annual release date and in part due to its food-friendliness.
personally i can't wait for this years Nouveau to come out. i drink Duboef Beaujolais Villages all the time. It's a great table red that's great to pair with just about any kind of food. Optimal serving temp is actually "cellar temperature" about 55 degrees F. The French would commonly keep this in the top layer of their cellars so that they would be able to reach it the most frequently. The bottles that were for company were kept deep in the cellar for preservation and brought out ahead of time to achieve the proper temperature. Beaujolais' were kept where they could reach them easiest and served right after being retrieved from the cellar. Seeing how most of us don't have wine cellars - this can be achieved by keeping the wine in the fridge and taking it out 20 minutes before serving - or keeping it at room temperature - and chilling in the freezer for about 6 minutes. Can't wait for this one - always in time for Thanksgiving - and perfect for turkey!
oh and ggaro44? there's nothing wrong with this wine. Sure there are other great Gamay wines coming out of Beaujolais - but what is exciting is as mainstream that GDBN has become that it still retains some level of quality. Admire the marketing, sales structure, but the identity that the vintner has - you have one biggest exports coming out of France to countries like Germany and the US - what does the US have? our top wine export is White Zin - I don't like it - but it definetely has a place in the wine world - there's a demand for it ... just like the GDBN. You just have to embrace it the market demand. I'm excited because it always creates such a buzz around my restaurant and bar and it encourages people to try something new - which is great for the industry.
Wow! That George Doboeuf is a marketing genius, huh?! How about NOT serving Beaujolais Nouveau?! There are way better tasting wines out there at a similar price or even better. Thinking about BN makes me gag. Overhyped, overrated.
Nate O, a "commis sommelier," likes GDBN? Is he mad? He just lost his credibility.
Ha! You got suckered into the Beaujolais Nouveau hype? You should have bought a good bottle of real Cru Beaujolais instead, like a 2006 Domaine Diochon Moulin A Vent Vielles Vignes Cru Beaujolais.
55 degrees