Crushing It: Celebrating Beaujolais Nouveau at Valley Bar

Do you really need a reason to raise a glass? Oenophiles, Francophiles, and anyone with an appetite for a good time can toast a French wine harvest tradition in Valley Bar's Rose Room. The bar celebrates Beaujolais Nouveau Day — always the third Thursday of November — with the nearby Hidden Track Bottle Shop on Thursday, November 21.

Hidden Track owner Craig Dziadowicz says glasses of Beaujolais Nouveau from Domaine Dupeuble will be served along with tasty bites imported from France.

“We're going to bring in some French-churned butter — we're actually flying that in,” Dziadowicz says. “And the cheese is Regal de Bourgogne Moutarde — which technically comes from northern Burgundy — but Beaujolais and Burgundy are pretty much the same region. We're also flying in some fresh cow milk cheese covered in dried mustard seed. So we're sticking with food offerings that will express the regional terroir.”

In order to sample more from the Beaujolais region, Hidden Track has three specialty bottles of wine available for preorder by next Tuesday: Domaine des Nugeus Sparkling Gamay, Guy Breton Beaujolais-Village, and Domaine Matray les Paquelets Julienas.

Between picking grapes and hauling fruit, the harvest season was typically an exhausting one in France. According to Dziadowicz, winery staff and volunteers celebrated the end of the season with bottles of new wine produced with gamay grapes from the Beaujolais region. He says Beaujolais Nouveau celebrates community, whether you’re drinking in France or Arizona.

“It's wine that is made to be refreshing,” says Dziadowicz. “It’s made to be crushable and to be drank amongst friends and family.”

The Beaujolais Nouveau Day Party will run from 8 to 11 p.m. on Thursday, November 21. Entry is free for the 21-and-over event. For more information, visit the Valley Bar website.