Beaujolais, Georges Duboeuf and the Evolution of Nouveau: Rudolph Chelminski Discusses His New Book

Each year at 12:01 AM on the third Thursday of November, millions of bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau begin a journey from a little French village to locales across the globe. Wine stores and cafes enthusiastically greet these shipments with signs and banners proclaiming "Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé!" "The New Beaujolais has arrived!". With this begins the annual celebration of the arrival of the French wine Beaujolais Nouveau, a celebration steeped in tradition, frivolity, grandeur, legend, and of course, fabulous wine.

Rudolph Chelminski, in his book I’LL DRINK TO THAT: Beaujolais Nouveau and the French Peasant Who Made it the World’s Most Popular Wine, draws on decades of first hand perspective to detail how the people, land, and culture of Beaujolais -not to mention a peasant vintner named Georges Duboeuf- come together to form the most unique of wine stories. IntoWine.com recently had the pleasure of chatting with Rudolph Chelminski about Beaujolais and the new book.

What inspired you to write a book about Beaujolais Nouveau and Georges Duboeuf?

Let me settle one point right away: my book isn’t about Beaujolais Nouveau, and not even limited to Beaujolais wines, either. The subject is the Beaujolais or, as the French say, le Beaujolais. “The” Beaujolais because it’s a wine, of course, but what many people don’t realize is that it’s also a place, a little rectangle of vineyard land roughly between the cities of Mâcon and Lyon, in central France. The old capital of this winemaking area is the town of Beaujeu, and le Beaujolais signifies both the land lying around Beaujeu and the wine that’s made there. In my book I set out to depict the land, the people, the history, the traditions and folklore as well as the wine. And Beaujolais Nouveau is only one part of all this.
What inspired me to write about it? You’re right to bring up Georges Duboeuf, because the whole thing started with him. Georges and I have been friends for more than 30 years now, and he’s really an extraordinary guy, always full of ideas.