To Wine and Dine : By the Sip or by the Recipe, Beaujolais Nouveau Adds Fruity Flavor to Any Menu, Even Pasta, Seafood and Guinea Fowl

IN WINE-DRINKING circles, new wine is usually not held in much regard. Even the most ordinary of vintages seems to need, if not long aging time in vats or barrels, then at least a few months to settle down in the bottle and knit together a bit. There is one notable group of exceptions to this rule, though: The bright, fragrant, intensely flavorful, intensely fruity wine called Beaujolais Nouveau and its cousins, the Beaujolais Nouveau-style wines now being made in California and in other wine-making areas.

Beaujolais --the original--is a fresh, attractive, fruity red wine made from Gamay grapes in the Beaujolais region of France--south of Burgundy, just north of Lyon. And Beaujolais Nouveau is simply brand-new Beaujolais, usually produced through a process called carbonic maceration, by which grapes are sealed into tanks with carbon dioxide gas and, in effect, allowed to ferment within their skins before they burst under their own weight and release their juice. These wines receive no aging, either in barrels or in the bottle. In fact, they are meant to be drunk within a few months of their birth, and they frequently start fading and losing their charm by Christmas.

Beaujolais Nouveau and its cousins are never great wines and aren’t supposed to be. But at their best, they are sheer sensual delight, an encapsulation of pure fruit flavor, a spirited incarnation of the grape.

Traditionally, Beaujolais Nouveau was strictly a local wine in France, drunk by wine makers and vineyard workers and not considered serious enough to ship to Paris, much less overseas. But 20 years ago or so, for whatever reasons, it started to become a fad. Every year, on Nov. 16--the day after the first day the wine could legally be sold--cafes all over France began to hang up banners in their windows announcing, “ Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrive !” Wine lovers would compete with one another to be the first to taste the wine each year.

Soon the craze spread beyond France, and restaurants and wine merchants in Tokyo, Copenhagen and New York started vying with one another to be the first to serve the wine. At times, the whole thing has gotten pretty silly. There has been Beaujolais Nouveau flown to Washington on the Concorde, dropped by parachute into London, Federal Expressed to Los Angeles. For all I know, at this very moment, somebody is probably trying to figure out a way to fax the stuff over here. (The wine is now released officially on the third Thursday of November instead of always on the 15th, and there is virtually no large city in the Western World where it isn’t available by the following Monday.)

One of the best non-French versions of Beaujolais Nouveau is the Harvest Wine (subtitled Gamay Beaujolais Nouveau) made by the Charles Shaw Winery in the Napa Valley. Shaw is an expert on the Gamay grape and its relatives, and he travels frequently around the United States spreading the Gamay gospel. While on the road in the late fall, during nouveau season, he reports that he encounters numerous interesting dishes cooked with his Harvest Wine or with Beaujolais Nouveau from France. He particularly remembers a presentation of sea scallops in puff pastry with a sauce based on Harvest Wine (curiously enough, the wine seems to pair extremely well with seafood) and a salad of fresh sauteed duck liver dressed with vinaigrette made with raspberries and Beaujolais Nouveau.

“There isn’t much of a tradition of cooking with Nouveau in France,” he says, “because it used to be pretty rough, acidic wine. When it started getting an international reputation, though, and being sold around the world, I think most large-scale producers made a conscious decision to smooth it out somewhat and reduce the acidity. Old-fashioned Beaujolais Nouveau still shows up here occasionally, but it usually doesn’t last more than one season. Shippers like Duboeuf, Drouhin and Fessy really make their wines in a more consistently pleasant style today so that they’re more enjoyable to drink, and easier to cook with, and so do we.”

Shaw says that, as an accompaniment to food, Beaujolais Nouveau-style wines are extremely versatile. In addition to matching up superbly with traditional winter holiday dishes, Shaw says, they go very well with such foods as salad Nicoise, pasta with pesto sauce, fried fish (virtually any variety with firm, white meat), fresh boiled crab or shrimp, Cobb salad, quiche Lorraine, barbecued chicken, and frog legs, even oysters on the half-shell (which this writer, for one, will frankly have to taste to believe). They also are superb, of course, with dishes cooked with them. Here are some suggestions for such dishes:

CALIFORNIA-BORN chef Jonathan Waxman, whose now-defunct Jams restaurant was widely credited with having introduced “California Cuisine” to New York, is now at work on a book about contemporary American food, to be published next year by Simon & Schuster. This is a recipe from that book.

BRAISED SUPREMES OF GUINEA FOWL AND YELLOW POTATOES WITH BEAUJOLAIS NOUVEAU 4 pounds yellow Finnish potatoes or white potatoes 1 pound unsalted butter 1 bottle Beaujolais Nouveau 3 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed 6 shallots, peeled and minced 1/4 pound thick-cut bacon, cut into 1/4-inch cubes 8 breasts of guinea fowl or chicken, boned but with skin left on (ask butcher to bone breasts for you) 8 heads of Belgian endive 1/4 cup chicken stock 1/2 bunch parsley, minced 1/2 bunch chives, minced Salt and pepper to taste Wash and thinly slice potatoes. (Do not peel.) Generously butter baking dish large enough to hold potatoes with about 1 inch left at top.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Melt about 1 ounce butter in small skillet, and saute garlic over low heat for about 3 minutes. Add Beaujolais Nouveau and salt and pepper to taste, and continue cooking for about 5 minutes. Strain and reserve liquid, discarding garlic.

Add potatoes to baking dish and distribute evenly, then drizzle chicken stock over top of potatoes. Bake in oven for about 10 minutes or until chicken stock has evaporated. Pour in half the Beaujolais Nouveau and continue baking, 35-45 minutes, or until potatoes are cooked but still firm.

Meanwhile, saute bacon in very large skillet (large enough to hold guinea fowl or chicken breasts) until golden-brown. Remove bacon with slotted spoon and set aside to drain on paper towels.

Salt and pepper guinea fowl or chicken breasts to taste, then saute--skin side down--in bacon fat, for about 3 minutes. Turn breasts over and add bacon, shallots and remaining Beaujolais Nouveau, and put in oven for 8-10 minutes.

Remove breasts from skillet and set aside. Reduce pan juices to about 1/2 cup liquid. Cut up remaining butter into small cubes; then stir in with whisk until well-mixed. Set sauce aside, keeping warm in a bain-marie .

Separate endive into leaves, cut into thin julienne strips and scatter in center of 8 warm plates. Spoon potatoes over endive, and place one guinea fowl or chicken breast on each serving of potatoes, skin side up.

Stir chives and parsley into sauce; then pour it carefully around edges of plate, covering endive but not guinea fowl or chicken. Makes 8 servings.

THIS IS A recipe from Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken of Los Angeles’ City Restaurant and the Border Grill. It has been adapted for the Beaujolais season from their book, “City Cuisine” (Morrow, $19.95). Feniger and Milliken say that turbot can be substituted for salmon.

ROASTED SALMON WITH BEAUJOLAIS NOUVEAU AND RED GRAPE COULIS 1 pound seedless red grapes 2 tablespoons ( 1/4 stick) unsalted butter 1 leek, white part only, cut in half lengthwise and thinly sliced 3 mushrooms, thinly sliced 2 shallots, thinly sliced 1 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon white pepper 1 1/2 cups Beaujolais Nouveau 1 1/2 cups fish stock or clam juice 1 cup cream Dash of Tabasco sauce 6 salmon filets, about 7 ounces each salt and white pepper to taste 4 tablespoons ( 1/2 stick) unsalted butter Additional seedless red grapes for garnish Remove 1 pound of grapes from stems and puree in blender until smooth. Strain to remove skins, and reserve juice in another container. (Do not wash blender yet.)

Melt 2 tablespoons butter in medium saucepan over low heat. Add leek, mushrooms, shallots, 1 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper, and cook until vegetables are soft but not colored, about 3 minutes.

Turn heat to high, add wine and reduce by half. Add fish stock or clam juice, and again reduce by half. Add cream, and reduce by half once more.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Puree cream mixture until smooth in the unwashed blender, then pass through medium strainer. Pour back into pot and stir in reserved grape juice and Tabasco. Keep warm over very low heat, preferably in a bain-marie.

Season salmon filets with salt and pepper to taste. Melt remaining butter in large skillet over high heat. Saute fish for 1 minute, then turn over, transfer to oven and bake, uncovered, for 3-5 minutes.

Arrange fish on individual plates. Spoon warm sauce over fish and garnish with additional grapes if desired.

Makes 6 servings.

GRANITE (pronounced grah-nee-TAY) is a sorbet of Italian origins popularized in Paris in the 19th Century. It has a granular texture (hence its name), reminiscent of--though more refined than--amusement-park snowcones. This particular refinement of the genre comes from Patrick Healy, chef and co-owner (with his wife, Sophie) of Champagne in West Los Angeles.

BEAUJOLAIS NOUVEAU GRANITE 3/4 pound granulated sugar 2 1/2 cups water 5 cups Beaujolais Nouveau 1/4 cup fresh-squeezed lemon juice 3/4 cup fresh-squeezed orange juice 8 sprigs of fresh mint Mix sugar and water together in saucepan and bring to boil, stirring occasionally. When mixture has boiled and turned syrupy, remove from heat immediately and allow to cool.

When syrup has cooled, mix it well with other ingredients in large stainless-steel or plastic mixing bowl.

Pour mixture into shallow stainless-steel or plastic container, and place in freezer. Freeze overnight.

To serve, scrape granite off top of container, and serve in glass bowls or wine glasses. Garnish each bowl with sprig of fresh mint.

Makes 8 servings.

OACHIM SPLICHAL serves a dish called “stack of potato salad with John Dory,” dressed with chive vinaigrette, at his new Patina in Hollywood. In a variation, he suggests using Beaujolais Nouveau to add vivid color and flavor to the dressing and replacing the potato with napa cabbage.

NAPA CABBAGE SALAD WITH JOHN DORY AND BEAUJOLAIS NOUVEAU VINAIGRETTE 6 ounces John Dory or other firm-fleshed white fish (e.g., halibut) 16 large leaves napa cabbage 2 ounces butter 4 ounces mixed baby lettuce 1 ounce Beaujolais Nouveau Dash of red wine vinegar 2 1/2 ounces extra-virgin olive oil 1 bunch chives, minced 1 ounce shallots, minced Salt and pepper Carefully cut fish vertically into 12 thin, rectangular slices of approximately the same size.

Cut the white (top) parts of the napa cabbage leaves into 16 pieces of approximately the same size and shape as the fish.

Saute fish pieces very quickly in butter, turning them once, carefully. (Fish should cook only a few seconds on each side.)

Meanwhile, plunge cabbage leaves into salted boiling water, and let water return to boil. Quickly drain leaves and pat them dry.

Mix Beaujolais, vinegar, oil and salt and pepper to taste, together well, then stir in chives and shallots.

Arrange baby lettuces on 4 plates, distributing them equally.

Arrange cabbage and John Dory on top of lettuce in alternate layers, into 4 stacks, beginning and ending with the cabbage.

Drizzle dressing over cabbage stacks and lettuce.

Makes 4 servings.

Photographed by John Reed Forsman; food styled by Stephen Shern; props styled by Kay Bay; flowers courtesy of Clifford Miller / The Flower Shop.