Audio By Carbonatix
Le Bouchon du Grove, the little French bistro in Coconut Grove, will add to Miami’s vice Thursday evening. To celebrate this year’s harvest of the Beaujolais Nouveau, the young fruity red wine grown and fermented quickly in Southern France, they’ll host a fete that will spill out of the bottle and on to the street as wine connoisseurs, enthusiasts, lushes, and animal lovers rejoice. Guest of honor for the evening won’t be a stuffy doddering wine critic but lively three-month-old Anna ze French orangutan, imported from her home across town, Parrot Jungle. “In France we celebrate with goats, hens, and pigs in the street,” explains Georges Eric Farge, Le Bouchon’s gregarious owner and chef. “But we are in South Florida, so I thought we could use a monkey.”
Farge’s fuzzy animal logic may indicate he’s dipped into the bottle a bit prematurely. But unless it’s last year’s vintage (rather vinegary by now), he’s not guzzling Beaujolais Nouveau. The crimson-colored libation makes its official international debut on the third Thursday in November. This tradition began in 1951, when Beaujolais producers banded together to promote their region’s wine. Since 1938 they had been subject to strict regulations from the French government about where, when, and how their wine could be distributed. After World War II ended, the regulations were repealed, and the deprived vintners implemented a strategy destined to restore popularity to the fruits of the Beaujolais vine. The crafty Frenchmen came up with a clever marketing scheme: November 15 would be named the definite coming-out date for the wine, an occasion for fanfare and folly late into the night.
Frenchmen and farm animals alike took to this idea quickly and wholeheartedly. The liquid and its attendant festivities spread throughout France, Europe, and the rest of the world. In 1985 the Beaujolais bashes caused such hoopla that the wine’s release was changed to the third Thursday in November, so that celebrations could stretch through the weekend. Now, according to Farge, about one million tons of the acclaimed vino are jetted out of France in the days leading up to the release date. Japan and the United States are the two biggest consumers.
The Miami version of this bacchanalia will have its own quirks. Wearing a beret, and, of course, a Le Bouchon du Grove T-shirt, simian star Anna will arrive with Farge via stretch limousine. She will hand the 2000 Mommessin Beaujolais Nouveau to the eagerly awaiting French consul, Philippe Chatignoux, who will officially uncork the bottle. Miss Beaujolais, dressed as a grape vine, will pour the drinks. Tall-toqued chefs will dish up the special French fare. The Gypsy Five will heat up the ambiance with Gipsy Kings-esque tunes. In France they say a day without wine is like a day without sunshine. In Miami enough said.
