2008 Beaujolais Nouveau Arrives Via Harley Parade

In a well-coordinated publicity stunt, the first cases of Georges Duboeuf 2008 Beaujolais Nouveau arrived in New York City yesterday via Harley-Davidson motorcade, with Franck Duboeuf (Georges Duboeuf’s son) holding it triumphantly aloft from a motorcycle sidecar. According to the Times, some 20 chefs, including David Bouley and Francois Payard, sommeliers, and a posse of Harley-Davidson Hog Club members chaperoned the wine from Battery Park to David Bouley’s new restaurant Secession, where lunch was served.

Beaujolais Nouveau differs from other wines in that it's bottled in the same year that it's harvested, traditionally about six weeks after harvest in mid-November. Distrubutors like Georges Duboeuf agree on a specific day to begin sales (by law, no earlier than the third Thursday in November) and typically turn the release into a spectacle, with the first cases arriving by hot air balloon, parachute, elephant, or, on one occasion, via the Concorde. So given the economy this year, delivery via oenophile biker gang sort of make sense.