For me, the real sign that the holidays are here is the arrival of Beaujolais Nouveau, and Thursday is the day. The most exciting news is that we are getting a truly high quality, hand-harvested nouveau from winemaker Damien Dupeuble of Domaine Dupeuble. This is Beaujolais! He makes Beaujolais the old-fashioned way, works with old vines, and leaves his wines unfiltered and unfined. His results are a far cry from the mass-produced, commercial nouveaus you'll see everywhere (those are fun, simple "slurping" wines, and we'll have those too).

 

With the Dupeuble Beaujolais you can expect a rich, ripe, fruitiness with lots of exuberant flavors of dark cherries, raspberries and such. That's due to the hand-harvesting with an 80-plus crew of pickers, seeking out the grapes at the peak of ripeness, picked over several passes. Year after year, this "boutique" source for Beaujolais Nouveau has danced rings around all the others. Fantastic with all sorts of food, you'll love this wine!

 

We also have a wonderfully pleasant nouveau arriving from the Louis Tête estate. He and his family make a number of fine Beaujolais and always celebrate the harvest with a lovely, simple and delicious nouveau.

 

Keeping with tradition, our air shipment of Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais Nouveau will also be on hand on Thursday. Duboeuf virtually created the international phenomenon of nouveau, and those of us who have been around and drinking it for a lot of years feel more than a little nostalgic when the new flower label pops out of the nouveau box.

 

This is your last chance to sign up for our November class on Elegant Pairings - Food & Wine. This special Third Thursday class will feature an extensive multi-course snacking menu from our deli with fine wines to match. We'll also focus on just what to do when pairing food and wine for more complicated meals: do you serve different wines with each course or offer the same white and red throughout the entire meal; do you compliment or contrast the dominant flavors; do you aim for the wine to stand out more than the food or vice versa? Space will be extremely limited, so please call TODAY to sign up - (847) 673-5711. Payment in advance is required.

Thursday, November 15 from 6:30-7:45 p.m., CAP $25 ($30 non-CAP members). Call (847) 673-5711 to register.

Our Winter Sale brochure just went to the printer, so it'll be in the mail late this week. I've read it from cover to cover and am very excited about this new sale. I thought I'd mention a couple of wines that jumped out at me. These are new wines I just tried and absolutely loved.

 

Granted, it's easy to fall in love with a wine that got 90 points from Wine Spectator, but only after I had a chance to try it for myself. This is the epitome of Pinot Noir elegance. Alma Rosa winery was founded by Richard Sanford, of Sanford winery fame, so there's another clue that this wine is special.

 

Sourced from their vineyards in the Santa Rita Hills, Richard and his wife Thekla are dedicated to organic farming in their vineyards, and the back label on the bottle reads: "We are committed to sustainable farming, our employees, and environmental consideration in the production of our wine and packaging." The label also reads "Recycle this bottle or return to winery for re-use."

 

Inside the bottle, things are equally impressive. Wine Spectator describes the wine eloquently: "With enticing aromas of lavender and berry, this is rich, supple and elegant on the palate, with a vibrancy to the fruit and a suppleness to the texture. Long and fruity on the finish. Drink now through 2011. 90 points, outstanding." This wine is currently on our shelf and in our Winter sale.

Alma Rosa Pinot Noir 2005, Santa Rita Hills, CA $29.97/750 ml, case $369.64 (regularly $37.95)

Having a huge weakness for Napa Valley Cabernets, my tastebuds perked up when I tasted this Cabernet Sauvignon from the Beckstoffer family and their Amber Knolls Vineyard in the Red Hills appellation, located in northern California. The winemaker, Tuck Beckstoffer, has been working in the Napa Valley since 1975 with some of the finest vineyard managers in the world. He started the Seventy-Five Wine Company with the goal of crafting and providing value-oriented, hand-crafted wines that showcase quality, pedigree and packaging.

 

So this isn't Napa, but you could have fooled me. The Beckstoffers seem to have trained their vines to think they are in Rutherford, when they are really in Lake County. A million years ago, nearby Cobb Mountain erupted into the valley and gave the area all the right stuff for premium Cabernet vines. This new release, following on the heels of their inaugural 90 point-scoring 2004, is delicious. This wine is currently on our shelf and in our Winter Sale.

In 2004, Château Palmer created an extraordinary new wine, which they called "Historical XIX Century Blend." This wine is a blend of 85% Bordeaux varieties from Palmer's vineyards and 15% Syrah from the Rhone, produced as an homage to a wine that might have been released in the 19th century. So here's the intriguing thing about this rare release. The Bordeaux portion of this blend is Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, 50/50, and are not young vines. They were chosen because winemaker Thomas Duroux felt they would blend best with the Syrah. The result is rich and concentrated, drinking well young and bound to evolve well over the next 15-20 years.

 

Look at the label and you'll recognize the historic Château Palmer look, but the name and picture of the château had to be removed, governed by the precise labeling laws in France. As a vin de table, there is no vintage shown, except at the bottom where it reads lot # L 20.04, which divulges the vintage in code.

 

We consider ourselves very lucky to have been offered a very small allocation of this historic treasure, considering there were only 100 cases produced! Please contact us if you are interested, and we will do our best to allocate a bottle to a few of our regular CAP customers.

Château Palmer XIX Century Blend 2004, France $179.97/750 ml (regularly $224.95)

Join us this Saturday between 11 AM and 5 PM when we will be tasting our staff's favorite picks for Thanksgiving. There are plenty of great choices, so this would be the perfect time to sample a few possibilities for your family's feast. Hope to see you there! It's free!

That's all for this week. If we may be of any further service, please stop by our store at 9965 Gross Point Road in Skokie (for directions, click here), visit our website at http://www.schaefers.com, give us a call at 847-677-WINE (9463), 800-833-WINE (9463), or click here to contact us.