S.W AND RICH HERMANSEN
Staff Writers
wine@lbknews.com
November 20th of 2025, the third Thursday in November and a week before Thanksgiving in
the USA, marks the day in France that the first wine of the 2025 vintage arrives in Paris. We had announced the occasion a week earlier and scouted wine stores in the Sarasota Florida area on the big day for bottles labelled ”Beaujolais Nouveau 2025”. We discovered that stores such as LBK Liquors and others had missed the wholesalers cutoff date for ordering Beaujolais Nouveau and could not ask for a November 20th or earlier delivery date.
Our experience in our search for Beaujolais Nouveau in Sarasota during its special day remined us of the quest of Linus Van Pelt in the comic strip Peanuts (circa 1966) to find the mythical Great Pumpkin during his vigil in a pumpkin patch. Cartoonist Charles Schulz penned both the episode of the Great Pumpkin in the comics and the script for a movie about Linus’ obsession with the Great Pumpkin.
Our quest for Beaujolai Nouveau 2025 fared better than Linus’ search for the Great Pumpkin. We found small displays at a couple of stores that we had asked a few days earlier about their plans for Beaujolais Nouveau Day: ABC Fine Wine and Spirits and Sarasota Liquors Wine. We bought a bottle of the iconic 2025 George DuBeuf Baujolais Nouveau from Sarasota Liquors.
We also bought a bottle of the 2025 Marechal Beaujolais Nouveau from ABC. Each of the bottles sold for $17.
Some of the 125 guests at a pre-Thanksgiving feast at CitySide, an apartment complex in the Rosemary District in Sarasota, sampled the two bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau. Both had fresh red fruit tastes and light, dry finishes. The Marechal had a deeper red hue than the DuBeuf. Each of these wines paired well with turkey and ham, dressing, cranberries, squash, and root vegetables traditionally part of a Thanksgiving feast.
We echo the recommendations of wine experts. Serve Beaujolais with harvest feasts. It has the light tastes that enhance bird, pork, and vegetarian dishes. While Beaujolais has usually made lighter wines, the region also produces natural Cru Beaujolais wines from the Gamay grape that rival the Pinot Noir of neighboring Burgandy.
S. W. Hermansen has used his expertise in econometrics, data science and epidemiology to help develop research databases for the Pentagon, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Agriculture, and Health Resources and Services. He has visited premier vineyards and taste wines from major appellations in California, Oregon, New York State, and internationally from Tuscany and the Piedmont in Italy, the Ribera del Duero in Spain, the Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale in Australia, and the Otego Valley in New Zealand. Currently he splits time between residences in Chevy Chase, Maryland and St. Armand’s Circle in Florida.
Rich Hermansen selected has first wine list for a restaurant shortly after graduating from college with a degree in Mathematics. He has extensive service and management experience in the food and wine industry. Family and friends rate him as their favorite chef, bartender, and wine steward. He lives in Severna Park, Maryland.
