Anti-Nouveau Beaujolais Thursday

Here's one more way the French have it over us. We make a holiday of the fourth Thursday to overeat and watch football. They make a holiday of the third Thursday and drink new wine. Can you say "way more fun"?

Today's event at Barrel Thief was a two-fer: the wine shop was doing a 2010 Beaujolais Cru tasting and the guys at SausageCraft were there doing an anti-Nouveau Beaujolais tasting. How great was it having gamay and pig competing for my attention? Luckily I had plenty for both.

The purpose of the tasting was to experience something other than the usual supermarket swill which has become synonymous with Beaujolais Nouveau. To that end, they were sampling Beaujolais Nouveaus from each of the ten Crus of the region.

The crowd was comprised of lots of wine geeks, one from a wine shop in Williamsburg even, and wine-lovers like yours truly. Flying the company colors and sipping away were the Boathouse, Ellwood Thompson and Secco.

The couple next to me provided a lot of entertainment value, mostly him and his corny jokes, so I had company from the start. My friend was late arriving, so I tasted the first five wines while waiting for him (only because the manager told me to start without him and I always do what I'm told).

Finally he arrived and we could taste together. To allow him time to catch up on his tasting, I strolled over to the SausageCraft table where Brad was cooking up pork belly sausage made with Beaujolais and made just today. New wine, new sausage, it was a relationship for the ages.

The sausage was full-flavored with just a trace of herbs and wine. Cooked up hot and smelling so good it made it tough to focus on the wine at times, it was the clear star of the evening. No one could agree on which wine was best, but everyone was raving about the incredible sausage.

And, not that I know anything about wine (other than I like to drink it), but my votes for best go to the Domaine Cheveau 2008 Saint Amour (from the smallest and most rare of the ten Cru villages) and the Jean-Paul Thevenet 2009 Morgon, a wine so to my taste that I took one sip and said to my friend, "Taste this now."

As we were walking out, I picked up my pace because I was running behind to meet friends. "Triple-booked tonight?" he asked. "Just double," I told him. But still late. What if my date thought I stood them up? I wouldn't be able to live with myself.

Stop #2 was the Belvidere to meet one of my very favorite couples for a catch-up session. Unbelievably, we hadn't seen each other since Folk Fest because of their crazy work schedules. Imagine, people who put work ahead of play; I like them anyway.

I ordered the house-smoked salmon, always perfectly executed at the Belvidere and, because I knew I couldn't top the Morgon, a Don Julio for sipping. Now we could talk.

This is a couple who eats out as much as I do, so we ran through a comparative chat about places we'd all been since our last rendezvous. Even when we don't eat together, we seem to share the same opinion of how a restaurant is doing. We talked about their plans to spirit me to the West End soon (and not against my will it should be noted).

They too asked me about my big news and I shared how that was going. They're polite enough that they didn't make any snide remarks about my slow-moving progress like some friends I could mention (you know who you are).

We ended with a discussion of how so many people they know at work go through the motions of Thanksgiving only because they feel it's expected of them, not because they enjoy any of it.

See, that's my point exactly. Wouldn't it be whole lot easier to get behind a wine drinking Thursday holiday and avoid all that dysfunctional family holiday stuff entirely?

My only problem would be giving up the stuffing, but only because it has sausage in it.

When it comes right down to it, it's always about the sausage, isn't it?

Rhetorical question, mind you.