The eminent drinkable wine .beaujolais nouveau--one need to only glate into the gaping maw of worldwide celebrity culture to understand what has happened to the "it-factor" of beaujolais nouvean.

One need only glance into the gaping maw of worldwide celebrity culture to understand what has happened to the "it-factor" of Beaujolais Nouveau in the past ten years. The eminently drinkable wine, like a fresh-faced starlet, was once the autumn toast of every town from Paris and New York to Tokyo and Sydney. The more the public expressed its love for the Nouveau tradition, the greater and more elaborate the promotions and stunts became. Did the apex of the hype cycle occur in the early 1980s, when cases of Beaujolais Nouveau were flown to New York on the Concorde, along with chickens cooked by Paul Bocuse himself? Was it when elephants, helicopters and parachutes were drafted into the race to uncork the first anticipated bottle? No one can say for sure, but somewhere amidst the hoopla, a backlash emerged, and many of those who had once embraced the fun of the Nouveau tradition began to openly disparage what has been described as "a wine that does not want to be taken seriously." Like a teenaged poo singer or a Lolita-styled actress, Beaujolais Nouveau doesn't aim to engage you on an intellectual level. It seeks only to make you happy. "Love me for what I am," it seems to say. "Don't hate me for what I'm not."

Michael Aaron, owner of New York's venerated Sherry-Lehmann Wines and Spirits, has been selling Beaujolais Nouveau in his retail store since the late 1960s, and was the first in the United States to carry wines by Georges DeBoeuf, who dominate the category. Aaron speculates that the wine's fall from grace in recent years is due to "a vendetta within the wine press community. The media always need something to write about, and Beaujolais Nouveau became an easy target, because it's something different, and has to be promoted commercially. The media attack those products that we promote commercially. Sales have declined over the years, but they haven't aeclined because of the taste of the wine. They've declined because of the media." Ironically, Aaron notes that today's Nouveau, now routinely denounced by wine snobs, is a product far superior to the Nouveau that first arrived on American soil in the 1960s, which he describes as a "very coarse wine that had to be consumed within five to six months." Today's Nouveau exhibits a characteristic lightness and fruit-forwardness for up to a year, says Aaron, thanks to mechanical improvements in its bottling and transport.

Love me for what I am.

Beaujolais Nouveau is, of course, just one of the many, varieties of wine from the Beaujolais AOC, a fact that the Nouveau marketing machine seems to have inadvertently obscured. By law, all grapes harvested in the region must be hand-picked, a mandate shared only with the Champagne AOC French law also dictates that all Beaujolais wines be made exclusively from Gamay grapes. In addition to the Nouveau, the region produces wines known (in ascending order of quality) as Beaujolais, Beaujolais-Villages, and Beaujolais Crus. The latter distinction is reserved for the best wines produced in ten towns (Brouilly, Chenas, Chiroubles, Cotes de Brouilly, Fleurie, Julienas, Moulin-a-Vent, Morgon, Regnie and St.-Amour) within the region And, within some of those towns, further subdivisions exist. That there is such variety within the Beaujolais region is hardly news to the reasonably well-educated wine collector or professional, but it's likely to surprise the vast majority of wine drinkers, especially after years and years of Nouveau hype. Bill Deutsch, who has been importing DeBoeuf's Beaujolais for over twenty years, reports that, in an average year, he'll bring in 200,000 cases of Nouveau, but just 40,000 cases from the ten Crus combined.

Is the wine-drinking public throwing out the baby with the bathwater? New York publicist Kathleen Talbert suggests that Beaujolais Nouveau be enjoyed in the same way as one might enjoy an autumn hayride, a visit to the local pumpkin patch, or the annual family viewing of A Charlie Brown Christmas. "We've lost the flow of the seasons in our lives, for a number of reasons," she says. "Thanksgiving, which is also Beaujolais Nouveau season, is one of the few vestiges remaining from the agrarian lifestyle. The world is awash in Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon, but Beaujolais is the only place that grows the Gamay grape that makes these specific wines. People should just relax and have fun with it." As the publicist whose firm has represented De Boeuf since the mid 1980s, Talbert clearly has a vested interest in Americans' continued or renewed enjoyment of Nouveau, a reality which makes her point no less valid.

"It's a French tradition. Everybody waits for the new Beaujolais. It's a celebration of the regional cuisine as much as the wine," says Franck Deletrain, executive chef of New York's Cafe Centro, who was born in France. Beginning on the third Thursday of November, Deletrain prepares a Beaujolais menu, featuring such typically Lyonnaise and Beaujolaise ingredients as rabbit, mustard, duck, trout and mushrooms, paired with a succession of wines from the region.

"It's a peasant cuisine, down to earth, with no pretensions," Deletrain continues. "That's how we look at the wine. It is for celebration." Aviram Turgeman, the company bar chef for New York's Tour de France group, has presided over a number of Beaujolais Nouveau celebrations in the company's restaurants, some involving costumed cancan dancers and "meet and greets" with Franck DeBoeuf, son of George. He has devised a handful of cocktails using Nouveau, which he says is "a natural to blend with fresh muddled grapes or grape jelly. It's got good berry and bubblegum flavors, good extraction. It makes perfect sense in a cocktail." Turgeman agrees that wine drinkers should accept Beaujolais Nouveau for what it is. "Go with the flow," he advises would-be wine snobs. "Celebrate with the French. They are the origin of wine culture."

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Nouveau Martini (Serves 1)

For the cocktail: Combine ingredients in mixing glass, add ice and shake 15 seconds. Strain into chilled martini glass. Serve with toast alongside.

For the cocktail:

2/3 ounce lemon juice
3/4 ounce grape jelly
1/2 ounce Grand Marnier[R]
1 ounce London[R] dry gin
1/2 ounce Beaujolais Nouveau

For the garnish:

1 slice white bread, toasted, with grape jelly

Le Nouveau Fizz (Serves 1)

For the cocktail: Muddle five grapes in mixing glass, add all ingredients except soda and shake eight seconds. Strain into 12-ounce highball glass almost full of ice and top with soda. Garnish with remaining grapes and serve.

For the cocktail:

5 red seedless grapes
3/4 ounce lemon juice
1 ounce simple syrup
1 ounce Beaujolais Nouveau
1 ounce Plymouth[R] gin
1 ounce Ciroc[R] vodka
Club soda to taste

For the garnish:

2 red seedless grapes, on stem