It's nearly that time of year when the snobs among us cringe and hide. It's the one time when a wine becomes part of the broader culture, especially with people who rarely drink wine.

As they'll say in Paris on Thursday (Nov. 20), “Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrive!”

A lot of pretension goes with a lot of wine expertise. Beaujolais Nouveau will have none of it.

Among wine snobs, we see people holding wine glasses aloft to examine its color while the blood drains from their arms. We hear snobs taking sips and then sucking air into their mouths to aerate their droplet, to gain an insight into the wine's mysterious inner core.

No such silliness is necessary or warranted with Beaujolais, especially the nouveau version that hits store shelves on the third Thursday of each November.

That's the day when French law permits the new vintage to be first sold. It's just a week away from Thanksgiving, a meal with which this wine works so well.

A decade or two ago, the date on which the nouveau would be released was one to target, for restaurants as well as retailers. Not only would the French flags go out in cafes, retail stores and wine bars, but special promotions were staged. Television camera crews were sent to the locations where the first bottles, rushed to market on the Concorde, were opened with a flourish.

It hasn't been that way for some time.

Retailers recently have told me that there is no advance enthusiasm for the wine — meaning special promotions. Special dinners will be staged only by those committed enough to the concept of Beaujolais Nouveau to understand this wine.

And I doubt that many TV news shows will conclude, as they once did, with pictures of folks swigging Beaujolais Nouveau in all sorts of festive settings.

Understanding this wine is very easy. You chill it down — yes, a red you may chill! You splash some into a glass. Any glass will do; wine glasses are not mandatory or even necessary. And you slug it down.

No, you do not take a tiny sip and slosh it around inside your mouth. You do not pontificate on its hedonistic impenetrability. You do not score it. Beaujolais nouveau is for gulping.

The French drink this wine not as an experience as much as a quaff, and they do so at lunchtime, before dinner, throughout dinner, and with a late night snack.

And they do it on picnics, on the patio, in the hot tub and any other place where the mood strikes them. It is a bistro wine, not a wine for the gourmet white tablecloth table, and as such it comes to market attractively priced.

Most Beaujolais Nouveau should be $8 or $9. More than that and you're probably paying for airfreight. Indeed, that fact alone, its low price, might be why there is so little open enthusiasm for le nouveau by merchants.

Said one savvy California retailer, “There's no margin in it, everyone has the same brands, we all discount them about the same, and if we don't sell it in a few weeks, it declines in quality and in value. Is it any wonder I love Nouveau for about two weeks and then hate it?”

This is a wine that when young has a fresh, fruity aroma of berries —blueberry, blackberry, even cherry. It is austere in that it has received just 60 days of aging after fermentation, if that, and it is evanescent: Drink it young or you'll pay the consequences — the wine will lose its fruit, the one reason we love it. And then all that will be left is the memory of the last good bottle.

The leading Nouveau producer, George Duboeuf, will again lead the winner's parade with this wine. But at least a dozen other good-sized houses from Beaujolais will be in the game. They always are. And though Duboeuf always gets the lion's share of ink, the others make excellent Beaujolais too.

Wine of the Week: 2008 Robert Oatley Sangiovese Rose, Mudgee ($14) — Without a 2008 Beaujolais Nouveau yet available to recommend, this pink wine is a delightful replacement. It's sort of like a light red, with a tasty dryness and a strawberry jam aroma that works nicely with food. From the founder of the Rosemount line of wines, and from an Australian wine region not yet recognized for the great quality of its wines.

Dan Berger resides in Sonoma County, Calif. Berger publishes a weekly newsletter on wine and can be reached at danberger@VintageExperiences.com. To find out more about Dan Berger and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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