​On Thursday, November 17, 2016 the world celebrates Beaujolais Nouveau Day!  Well, wine lovers and wine grunts all over the world certainly do, anyway.   Beaujolais nouveau is the most popular of all the vins de primeur, French wines that are permitted by Appellation d’origine controlée regulations to be sold after a very brief fermentation period in the same year as their harvest.  Frequently, only a few weeks pass before they are released on the third Thursday of November and distributed to the local markets at 12:01 am local time.  This year, that big day arrives tomorrow!

​Despite the very recent acclamation it has received,[i] the Vinis vinifera, Trousseau Noir, is considered a somewhat uncommon red grape nowadays when compared to such recognized varietals as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir, etc.  While on the one hand, it has left traces throughout Europe, on the other, it remains somewhat elusive since it is used to blend with other wines, goes by approximately eighteen principal synonyms, and is frequently mistaken for at least six other grape varieties.[ii]   It is this elusive quality that may allow it to be referred to as a bit of a “trickster,” or at least to point in the direction of that archetype.   For Carl Gustav Jung, archetypes are universally archaic patterns that derive from humanity’s collective unconscious and act as mediators between us and the underlying unified reality from which everything emerges and to which everything returns, the unus mundus.[iii]