Beaujolais Nouveau - Race to the bottle! Race to the baby Beaujolais!

Little background and profile of this divergent, youthful wine:

“Beajolais Nouveau”- new Beaujolais. Beaujolais Nouveau is Beaujolais (made from Gamay grapes) that is only seven to nine weeks old. Beaujolais Nouveau accounts for nearly half of all basic Beaujolais made!

In the late 1960’s a PR wine guy came up with a whole campaign and flooded the streets of Lyon and Paris with posters screaming “Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé!'. The scheme behind it? A way of creating quick recognition and easy cash, under the impression of celebrating the Beaujolais harvest. Buuut the real deal was that it was young…almost too young as its released RIGHT after harvest. Releasing the Beaujolais at seven to nine weeks results in a very youthful, fruit-forward, grapey wine. Flavor profile you should expect- melted purple popsicles, or sometimes bubble-gum like…an adult grape juice that will go down too quick. ;)

In 1985, France’s Insitut National des Appellations d’Origine (INAO) set the third Thursday in November as Beaujolais Nouveau’s official release date. In turn, this has winemakers rushing to release their Nouveau’s on Nouveau day…forcing them to pick even earlier which undermine the grape itself. But what can we do aside from blame the 60’s PR oenophile who was trying to push out baby Beaujolais and make some quick cash from the casks? Cheers, see you on the third Thursday of November!

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