WINE IT UP!!!!

Happy Beaujolais Nouveau Day 2013!

Need another reason to drink wine today?

Yeah. Me too.

Hello Beaujolais Nouveau......you lovely little wine!  

 

I am sure everyone has a Beaujolais Nouveau story......let me tell you mine..... 

Several years ago, my very dear and super elegant college roomie and I met in downtown Pittsburgh one very lovely Thursday in November.  Our plans were simple---get dressed up, have a winey lunch and shop.  We were both working moms who needed a break and this was the perfect way to do it.   

Little did we know it was a wine holiday.   As a matter of fact, in our overwhelmed lives and our busy-raising-kids-and-working worlds, we had never even heard of Beaujolais Nouveau.  

But, we knew a lot about White Zinfandel......I will red-facedly admit....

Several weeks before our meet-up, we chose a much-talked-about new restaurant (now closed!) to have our winey lunch and to catch up.  We made our reservations, we both carefully chose our outfits (we had several very serious conversations on the matter!) and both of us ventured into the city on buses from separate parts of the area to meet up under the Kaufmann's clock.    

Upon entering the restaurant, we were greeted with great fan fare and were given a Happy Beaujolais Nouveau Day flyer announcing the festivities and the special menu for the occasion.  Upon being seated, we were told that as part of the celebration, we were going to each be given a small sampling of  Beaujolais Nouveau for a toast that was going to happen at noon.   Free wine?  Sure, give us some!

Well, I guess we were a tad bit thirsty....we drank up that little sample asap.....leaving us nothing to drink to participate in the toast!  So, we decided to order ourselves each a glass.   

No can do.....we do not sell it by the glass.....we only sell it by the bottle.   A bottle of wine? No  problem.  We are dressed up, we don't have any kids with us, we came here for wine and lunch.....hellya....give us a bottle.  

Yum. This wine is super good.  Wonder why we never heard of this wine?  Should we order lunch?  Eh, let's just order another bottle while we look at the menu.....

Well, I am sure you can guess the rest of the story.  We laughed our way through a second bottle and a third and then called cabs to bring us each home.  No lunch. No shopping.  

Just two mothers who celebrated Beaujolais Nouveau Day......

Each year since then, we always send each other Beaujolais Nouveau greetings and remind each other of how we came to know about this lovely little wine.   Both of us rush to our wine stores to get our bottles and sometime in the evening....we both sit down in our own homes, with glasses in hand and toast each other....even though there are many miles between us.  

It's a wonderful reminder that good friends and good wine make good memories.....

If you don't have a Beaujolais Nouveau story perhaps today would be a great day to make one.....