Wine in class?? In France, Oui!

Today was a rather interesting day in my 9 a.m. language class with Monsieur Chapus. A classmate gave a speech on Le Beaujolais nouveau. Beaujolais nouveau is a red wine made from Gamay grapes produced in the Beaujolais region of France. It is the most popular vin de primeur, fermented for just a few weeks then officially released for sale on the third Thursday of November. This "Beaujolais Day", or "Beaujolais Nouveau Day" sees heavy marketing from the producers, with races to get the first bottles of the vintage to different markets. Evidently, as a 'visual' he brought a bottle and our professor was nice enough to go get an enormous chocolate cake from one of the best bakeries in town because he said it was a good pair, and couldn't imagine us drinking the wine and not having something to accompany it. His 5 minute presentation proceeded into us learning about wine and wine tasting and pairing...in my language class, from my professor, for an hour. I love it!