Here's a made-up holiday I can get behind
Why (NOT) Beaujolais?
Today (the third Thursday of November) is "Beaujolais Day" around the wine drinking World.
Beaujolais Nouveau is the "first wine of the harvest," meaning it was picked early in the harvest season, and is just now becoming wine. It has become a tradition that Beaujolais Nouveau not be sold before midnight on the third Thursday of November. The wine is intended to be used to "celebrate the holidays" in France. This means Christmas and New Year's.
However, we here in the States have mistaken that to include Thanksgiving. But remember: There is no Thanksgiving in France. In fact, Beaujolais Nouveau is sometimes not quite wine by "Beaujolais Day." Which means it's usually not quite wine by our Thanksgiving—resulting in incidents of folks opening bottles of a grape juice/wine concoction with their turkey. Over the years, I have seen several bottles returned on Black Friday for just this reason. To avoid this, buy your Beaujolais today, but don't open it until you're ready to enjoy your Christmas dinner.
The wine will still be young and fresh and crisp with a slight sweetness to it ... and it should definitely be wine by then.
Cheers everyone.