These wines can’t be sold before 12:01 a.m. on the third Thursday of November.
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Trying Something Nouveau! BEAUJOLAIS NOUVEAU DAY IS COMING. Jessica Roberts
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County Lines | November 2021 | CountyLinesMagazine.com
F YOU LOVE A SPRIGHTLY CELEBRATION OF wine, be sure to mark November 18 on your calendar this year. What started as a French tradition among vineyard workers has grown into a worldwide holiday known as Beaujolais Nouveau Day. This end-of-harvest celebration focuses on a new wine that’s made especially for this event. This special wine is grown in the Beaujolais region of France and made with the gamay grape. Like pinot noir, the wine has a flavor profile that’s light-bodied, fruity and slightly floral with a heaping amount of acidity and low tannins. Beaujolais nouveau is typically a red wine, but more producers are releasing a rosé version as well. When done in nouveau style, the grapes are picked and quickly crushed and bottled, producing a unique flavor profile that’s sought out by wine lovers of all levels. Beaujolais Nouveau Day brought attention to the small winemaking region within France and made the wine very profitable. There are about 2500 farmers growing grapes for this wine and producing over 20 million bottles per year. Roughly 40% of that wine is exported, primarily to the United States, Japan, Great Britain, Canada and China. Before the 1950s, Beaujolais nouveau wine was made for vineyard workers to celebrate the end of the harvest and to congratulate them on their hard work for the year. Popularity increased when local shops in Paris started to carry and advertise this early-release wine. Soon, the race to provide the freshest vintage of nouveau wines to Paris started. Producer and businessman Georges Duboeuf was a key player in the rise of Beaujolais nouveau wines. In the 1970s, Duboeuf promoted contests for vineyards to race to Paris and encouraged the start of many festivals throughout Paris. By the 1980s, other countries became invested in this wine as well as the festival surrounding it. In 1985, stricter laws were passed for the yearly release of the Beaujolais nouveau wine, including one controlling the release date. These wines can’t be sold before 12:01 a.m. on the third Thursday of November. For those of us in the U.S., this date works perfectly for picking up this lovely wine for Thanksgiving sipping, since that’s the fourth Thursday of November. So, where do you find Beaujolais nouveau? Most wine shops carry it. Look for George Duboeuf’s Beaujolais Nouveau in red
