If you have an appreciation for wine; but don’t always go for big tannic reds, like Cabernet or super juicy Rhone style wines, then Italy’s rendition of “new wine” may be just the thing for you.  Roughly 15 million bottles of Vino Novello are released every year on the 6th of November.  This was especially time appropriate this year.  If you have ever tried Nouveau Beaujolais in the autumn or winter then you are familiar with the concept.  This is very youthful, light red wine with very little of the tannic bite that so many of the big age-friendly reds have.  Vino Novello is a wine that is meant to be drunk immediately, no aging, no anticipation. Just buy, open and drink.

Whether Nouveau Beajolais came first or Vino Novello came first is one of those Franco-Italo wars, like Bechamel sauce, that will never be won, but each side will argue to their deaths that it had to be their ancestors that invented it.  I am just fine and dandy with the battle continuing as long as I get to keep eating Bechamel sauce and drinking Vino Novello, I’ll even judge the debates while eating a lasagne that is layered with the Bechamel sauce and drinking some Beajolais, just to show my impartiality.

One great thing about Vino Novello in this economy is that it actually has a reasonable price tag.  Another great thing is it has such an easy drinkability that it is one of the few red wines I will consume happily without having any food.  This is extra fun when you are cooking and waiting for guests and don’t want to disturb your artfully arranged antipasto platter.  Vino Novello is an easy companion to many foods, antipasto, pasta and lighter meats, especially poultry and lean pork. Keep it light as far as sauces that you serve with this wine as well, just like stronger meats will overpower the wine, so will a chunky ragout or anything really salty.  Vino Novello is also a great wine to introduce white wine drinkers to red wine, or the wine neophyte to the pleasures of Bacchus.