What food goes with Beaujolais?

With a Beaujolais, serve Lyon charcuterie, roast chicken, warm sausage or rib of beef, and change the cru to suit the dish. A Villages for the aperitif, a Fleurie for poultry, a Morgon for red meat: our guide, Beaujolais nouveau excepted.

Beaujolais is a Gamay red grown on twelve appellations and 55 kilometres of hills at the gates of Lyon. It also comes in white and rosé, but the red is the wine of the bouchons, Lyon's traditional bistros. November's Beaujolais nouveau has its own article: this one covers the other eleven months.

Two limits govern the choice. The weight of the dish first: a supple Gamay vanishes behind game in sauce. Then the level of appellation, from Beaujolais Villages to the ten crus, the appellations named after a village, a hill or a windmill. A Villages and a Morgon do not go with the same dishes, or at the same temperature.

What charcuterie and aperitif dishes go with Beaujolais?

A Beaujolais Villages or a Brouilly at around 13 °C, with a board of rosette, jésus and dry-cured sausage. It is the bouchon pairing, and the safest. Gamay's fruit cuts the fat, and its light tannins do not harden on salt.

Rosette, jésus and dry-cured sausage

Rosette and jésus, Lyon's large dry-cured sausages, call for a red without oak or heavy tannin. A Villages does the job. So does a Régnié, which the Beaujolais trade body itself lists for the aperitif, charcuterie and tapas.

Tapas, bruschetta and burgers

With bruschetta, tapas or a homemade burger, stay with a young, cool Beaujolais or Brouilly. Keep the structured crus for the table.

What meat goes with Beaujolais?

All of it, provided you adjust the cru. Poultry and pork with a supple cru, Fleurie or Brouilly; beef, duck and lamb with a structured cru, Morgon or Moulin-à-Vent.

Roast chicken, Bresse poultry and roast pork

A braised Bresse chicken calls for a Brouilly; roast chicken or quail, a Juliénas, expressive and fleshy. Roast pork with apples and chestnuts goes with a Fleurie, round, low in acidity, soft in tannin. Veal blanquette stays on a fresher Chiroubles.

Rib of beef, duck breast and slow-cooked dishes

Rib of beef, grilled pork chops or roast venison call for a Morgon, structured and fleshy, served between 15 and 17 °C. With duck breast, a duck confit pie or coq au vin, move to a Moulin-à-Vent or a Chénas.

What cheese goes with Beaujolais?

Soft cheeses with a bloomy rind, Camembert and Brie first, with a Morgon to answer them. The trade body adds Saint-Marcellin and two strong cheeses, Munster and Livarot.

Camembert, Brie, Saint-Marcellin and Munster

Saint-Marcellin, creamy and runny, is the bouchon cheese: a three- or four-year-old Morgon holds it without crushing it. On a mixed board, a Chiroubles suits everyone. Fresh goat's cheese prefers a Villages, red or white.

Can you serve Beaujolais with fish or spicy food?

Yes: a supple cru served cool goes with oily fish, and a Villages stands up to a spicy dish. The trade body itself puts red Beaujolais with fish and Asian cooking.

Salmon, red mullet and seafood

Salmon in a herb crust goes with a Fleurie, red mullet with a Régnié, a lobster roll with a Chiroubles at 13 °C. With oysters or white fish in butter, switch to white Beaujolais, a Chardonnay served at 8 to 10 °C.

Curry, pizza and Asian dishes

A spicy lamb pizza or a sweet potato chili is served with a red Villages at 12 or 13 °C: the fruit softens the heat. A cauliflower curry prefers the white Villages.

Which Lyon dishes go with Beaujolais?

Warm sausage, salade lyonnaise, quenelles: bouchon cooking grew up with this wine, made less than thirty minutes from the city. It is the oldest pairing, and the least explained.

Warm sausage and salade lyonnaise

Saucisson chaud, a sausage poached then sliced over potatoes dressed in oil, wants a cool Villages or Brouilly: the acidity lifts the fat. Salade lyonnaise, frisée with bacon, croutons and a poached egg, follows the same logic.

Quenelles, cervelle de canut and saucisson brioché

Pike quenelles in sauce Nantua, rich in cream and crayfish, take a red if it is cool and free of hard tannin: a Chiroubles or a Fleurie at 13 °C. Cervelle de canut, fromage blanc whipped with herbs and shallot, is happy with a simple Beaujolais.

Saucisson brioché, sausage baked in brioche, and pâté en croûte, both festive dishes, ask for a more structured cru, Côte de Brouilly or Juliénas.

What are the best food pairings with Beaujolais?

Appellation level decides and serving temperature does the rest, as our guide to Beaujolais wines explains. Three families are enough.

Beaujolais and Beaujolais Villages: charcuterie, warm sausage, salade lyonnaise, pizza and spicy dishes, fresh goat's cheese; serve between 12 and 14 °C.

Supple crus, Brouilly, Chiroubles, Fleurie, Régnié, Saint-Amour: poultry, roast pork, blanquette, salmon and red mullet, cheese board; between 12 and 15 °C.

Structured crus, Morgon, Moulin-à-Vent, Juliénas, Chénas: rib of beef, duck breast and confit, coq au vin, Camembert and Munster; between 15 and 17 °C, 17 °C beyond three years. Côte de Brouilly, structured but lively, sits in either family depending on the dish.

Cool, then, never cold: an hour in the fridge at most, or a cellar at 10 to 14 °C. A young Morgon or Moulin-à-Vent gains from half an hour in a decanter.

Bonus: our Lyon sausage in Beaujolais recipe

Cooking sausage poached in wine is a Sunday dish in Lyon. Allow an hour, a sausage of about 500 grams and a bottle of Beaujolais, 50 cl of it for the sauce.

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 1 Lyon cooking sausage (saucisson à cuire), plain or with pistachios, about 500 g
• 50 cl of red Beaujolais
• 3 shallots
• 30 g of butter
• 1 bay leaf and 1 clove
• 800 g of waxy potatoes
• 1 tablespoon of cornflour
• Salt, pepper

Method

Soften the sliced shallots in the butter without colouring. Pour in the Beaujolais, add the bay leaf and clove, salt lightly, pepper, and simmer for ten minutes.

Lower the whole sausage, unpricked, into the simmering wine. Cover and cook for thirty-five minutes over a low heat. Meanwhile, steam the potatoes, then peel and cut them into large pieces.

Lift out the sausage, remove the bay leaf and clove. Thicken the sauce with the cornflour mixed into a little cold water, two minutes at a gentle boil. Slice the sausage over the potatoes, spoon over the sauce and serve with the same Villages, cool.

Beaujolais is not the wine of a single Thursday in November. It goes with a charcuterie board as well as a rib of beef, provided you pick the right appellation level and serve it cool, never cold.

Start with a Villages on warm sausage, move to a Fleurie on poultry, keep the Morgon for red meat and cheese. Stuck on a dish? The trade body has a simple rule: Lyon specialities, fish, world cooking, red Beaujolais goes with them.

Frequently asked questions about Beaujolais pairings

What meat goes with red Beaujolais?

All of them, going by the cooking rather than the colour. Roast pork or guinea fowl stay on a supple cru, Fleurie or Saint-Amour; a grilled entrecôte or a roast rack of pork moves up to a Chénas; duck, breast or confit, to a Moulin-à-Vent.

Is Beaujolais served cool or at room temperature?

Cool, never cold. A Beaujolais or a Villages is served at 13 or 14 °C, a cru at 15 to 17 °C, 17 °C past three years. An hour in the fridge is enough; beyond that, the cold shuts the aromas down.

Which Beaujolais goes with fish?

A red without hard tannin, served cool, does not clash with fish. The trade body serves a Régnié with a seafood paella and a Côte de Brouilly with a clam soup; with cod or scallops, switch to the white Villages.

Does Beaujolais age well?

The structured crus do: a Morgon keeps for around ten years, some Moulin-à-Vent for more than fifteen, a Chénas for eight to ten. A plain Beaujolais is best within three or four years, a Brouilly or a Chiroubles young, while the fruit leads.

Why buy your Beaujolais direct from the winemaker?

Because the winemaker ships the bottle himself, at estate prices, with no middleman's margin and no warehouse. You know the cru, the vintage and who made it, and you can follow one estate from Villages to Morgon as the dish changes.