Australian Thanksgiving

In no way claiming to be an authentic Thanksgiving feast (OK, I admit I'm trying to muscle in on somebody else's holiday), here's the meal we put together last night on the spur of the moment after Gerard suggested roasting a chicken. We ate it in memory of last year's snowbound Thanksgiving dinner with Ken and Linda in northern Michigan, and of all of our cherished American friends. (Sorry we couldn't get organised to do it on Thursday with you, Lex and Justin.)

* Roast chook, Gerard-style (rubbed with lemon, with a peeled lemon and 4 garlic cloves inside the cavity, and thyme and sage from the garden tucked between the flesh and the skin)
* Creamy mashed potatoes
* "Stuffing" cooked outside the turkey (cubed Sonoma Bakery spelt fruit bread - the half we didn't eat with French butter this morning - chestnuts, ham, onions, celery, sage, melted better, egg and nutmeg)
* Brussels sprouts with butter, lemon and walnuts
* Allspice gravy (Nigella Lawson's recipe, but omitting the honey)
* Cranberry sauce (dried cranberries warmed in a bit of orange juice then left to set)

With the closest thing we had to my current obsession with white burgundy: a 2004 Freycinet Chardonnay. Started with a whisper of vanilla and green apple, finished with melon flavours. No dessert necessary; this was satisfying enough.

Even better the next day on the couch in front of the Ashes! This is one pleasure you can't get in Michigan...

To absent friends... love them all

This one goes out to the one i love

For my mate Amber, working in South Korea, who wanted to see my new frock.

Beaujolais Nouveau: for the love of wine

At 10am this Thursday the clocks will strike midnight in France, setting off hundreds of wine-filled lorries speeding towards towns and cities in France and across the world. Eager drinkers will greet the new wine, which only a few weeks earlier was mere grapes on the vine, and in doing so take part in one of the world's largest and most exuberant harvest festivals.

Beaujolais Nouveau is not a serious wine but it's an event: a charming annual rite for the wine lover and a celebration of the vintage.

It has also become a marketing stunt with its race around the world dreamt up by a savvy winemaker in the 1970s, but the event actually has its origins in the nineteenth century when the harvest's new wine would complete fermenting in cask en route to nearby towns and villages. While the whole practice certainly provides a quick financial return for winemakers, the annual event is looked upon by the French - who cherish their provincial traditions - as part of the national culture. Much like their wine.

Valérie Nicolas, the director of the Alliance Francaise in Sydney, says the first wine of the French year is "something sacred". Like Proust's madeleines, the ritual is an olfactory memory: "I recognise the smell. It's the smell of the harvest and then you have it in your mouth".

For many French people, Nicolas says, the third Thursday in November is a "rite" - a day of the year for getting together with friends, telling stories and singing in the streets beneath party lights and braziers in the chilly November outdoors. A day when all generations mix together in enjoyment of the light, quaffable red.

Although the Beaujolais Nouveau is at the centre of the festivities, which start earlier in the day when the wine arrives (Nicolas says her parents will open a bottle as an aperitif before lunch), the wine is really an excuse for the annual celebration. "It's a way to set up the culture, it's tradition ... so many things. Beaujolais is like 1950s Paris, old French songs, Robert Doisneau, lively streets, the beret and baguette, the French thing you can do. It's also about the notion of pleasure."

For Brice Pinoncely, a Parisian living in Sydney, the Beaujolais Nouveau itself isn't much of a drawcard: "I think the Beaujolais Nouveau is not a good wine at all. [The day] is a pure tradition that's part of the French culture. Probably just an excuse to get pissed the same way as Australians do for the Melbourne Cup."

We can participate in the ritual too; because the phenomenon went global in the 1970s, some cases of Beaujolais Nouveau are permitted to be released early enough to be rushed around the world. On Thursday, French restaurants are hosting fêtes so that Australians can practice over-imbibing French-style simultaneously to (or, thanks to our timezone, even earlier than) our Parisian cousins. At Sydney's Alliance Francaise they're having a knees-up with accordionists, former Wallabies in attendance, and a groaning buffet of cheese, quiche and charcuterie. If that doesn't sound like the perfect conditions for a party, I don't know what is.

Beaujolais Nouveau is the sort of stuff people tend to glug lustily, making it a perfect party wine. It is exuberant, tastes of juicy red fruits, and its youthful zip and acidity refreshes and stimulates the appetite. It's fantastic with food but is more suited to finger food than big dinners, where its shortcomings quickly become obvious.

This is by no means a great wine; in fact it's sometimes an awful one. Just don't be too precious about it.

Beaujolais Nouveau is a wine to be enjoyed with laughter and conversation, then swallowed and forgotten. Wine critics disparage it, and it's sometimes raw and unfinished, but for wine romantics that's part of its appeal. What more can you expect from a wine made so quickly? Don't judge the product too harshly - Beaujolais Nouveau is about celebrating all wine rather than savouring this one example. Drink a glass and give thanks for the gift of vinification.

Should you bring home a bottle from a wine store, consume it immediately - it won't last. Tradition holds that Beaujolais Nouveau shouldn't be drunk after January 1st; the idea was to get it out of the way before the better stuff arrived. The speedy winemaking process (a matter of weeks) means the wine doesn't have much structure, but if you're curious to try some well-crafted Australian wine from the same grape, gamay, look for the extraordinary Sorrenberg Gamay out of Beechworth, which is grown in granite soil similar to that in the Beaujolais region of Burgundy. Or try some "real" village Beaujolais, which is a very different wine to the Nouveau, although not as ephemeral, and with none of the significance of new beginnings.

Do you drink Beaujolais Nouveau in November? What's your opinion of the wine and the tradition? Do you think Australia should honour the release of rosé wines with an annual festival?

This post originally appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald.

How to have your own Sideways experience

There are few excursions quite as enjoyable as a trip to a cellar door, whether you're a wine snob or not. What's not to love about free-flowing wine, country air and all the weathered barrels lying around?


Many people ask me how to get the best experience out of a winery visit, so here are some pointers.

* First, a bit of research. Having a wine guide like James Halliday's isn't essential - just drop into the region's information centre for a winery map.

* Read the information booklet for a bit of description about the different cellar doors and try to come up with a mix of larger and smaller ones. The bigger operations often hold tours where you get to see behind the scenes, learn how the wine is made, maybe succumb to a little romance thanks to the well-funded facilities. But the smaller outfits are the ones to seek out. If you're lucky you may be served by the winemaker him/herself, so here's your chance to hear them explain all of the elements in their creation. Interested cellar door staff aren't restricted to boutique wineries, but you're more likely to get a quieter moment at smaller ones where the server can spend a bit of time talking you through the range. If they're family of the winemaker they probably have a bit of investment in making sure you get the most out of their wines. Besides, you're more likely to get served a bit of the extra "not for tasting" drops if you aren't sharing the tasting room with a crowd.

* If you see a tour bus in the car park, leave immediately. Being inside a crowded tasting room is no fun. You don't want to be trying to catch the pourer's attention, and you won't learn much if they are too busy to talk to you. Come back another time.

* Don't overplan your trip - allow for serendipity. Perhaps a dusty, unsealed lane will entice, or a wending drive up a vine-covered slope, or a particularly fetching, ramshackle winery building. The places you arrive at without any expectations are often the find of the trip.

* Don't squeeze too many into one day. Four or five should be the absolute maximum, otherwise all the samples will start to taste the same (and your designated driver will be over the limit)

* Don't rush in order to fill up on free drinks. Apart from being boorish, you'll have more fun if you enjoy the cool of the tasting rooms and the country surrounds at a langourous pace. Should you be lead outdoors and given a seat beneath a vine-covered pergola and invited to share some wine, why rush?

* Ask questions and show interest in the cellar door and you'll often be rewarded with a lot of wine knowledge. Can there be a more enjoyable method of self-education than this, with glass in hand?

* When you walk into a winery you'll be asked what you'd like to taste, but unless you only drink whites or reds, start at the top and go through the list. They'll tend to start you off on dry whites, work through to the reds and finish with sweet and/or fortified. Be adventurous - try ones you think you don't like. Chances are, with somebody explaining the wine to you and in the spot in which it was made, you'll see something in the glass to admire.

* Ask what the winery are proudest of, or what they are well known for. Ask the winemaker what taste or effect they were trying to go for. Ask how the climate and the winemaking decisions contributed to the finished product. Ask if their wines are estate grown or if they buy in fruit, and why. Ask what types of wines they like to drink and whether they are trying to emulate them.

* One way of cutting down on the volume of alcohol consumed is for you and your companion to try only one glass of each wine on offer. This allows you to share glasses and compare different years or different versions if available. Many Hunter wineries, for example, do at least two different styles of shiraz. Taste them both, and discern the differences. Ask why they taste they way they do.

* Don't be afraid to ask as many questions as you need to. You don't have to be a show off and demonstrate your wine knowledge (in fact, please don't. You wouldn't want somebody from a different industry to walk into your office and tell you about your job, would you?)

* Finally, it's polite to buy at least one bottle before you leave to help subsidise your free tastings. Unless you really, really hated the wine, or in the rare case that the staff abandoned you when other customers turned up.

* Once you're finished, hang out in the winery's garden or make use of their picnic tables. Buy a bottle and have them uncork it - wine always tastes best when drunk at the winery. Hunter Valley wineries don't as a rule have cafes attached, but you can bring a lunch or some bread and cheese from the Cessnock supermarket. Entrepreneurs take note: Cessnock needs an upscale deli with takeaway lunch hampers.

What do you love about the cellar door experience? What bugs you? What magical winery moments? have you had?

This post first appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald.