France Welcomes the Beaujolais Nouveau
At The End Of November, France Celebrates The Year's First Wine
Nov 20, 2008
The French sip wine year round and hardly anyone needs an excuse to uncork a velvety vintage. When a good excuse does call across the country, the French collectively respond. Once a year, wine drinkers and francophiles abroad toast the opening of a new vintage with the arrival of the first wine of the year, the beaujolais nouveau.
Le Beaujolais nouveau est arrivé!
Every third Thursday, supermarkets, restaurants, and bars roll out the same banner, "The Beaujolais nouveau has arrived!" Difficult to escape this one day marketing campaign. It reaches to the far corners of the Hexagon and far beyond. Every foreign soil French bistro, and many decidedly un-French restaurants honor the new nectar with special tastings, fixed price menus, or simple mentions of the newest addition to the wine list.
In France, where wine goes with most everything in life, even university cafeterias and many offices will decant a bottle in honor of the national drink. The celebration reaches across all social classes, with decent bottles starting in the 3 euro range.
Geography
Beaujolais isn't just a wine, it's also a region just north of Lyon. Here, twelve different wines call themselves Beaujolais AOC, which certifies their geographic origin. The AOC soils--calcium and clay like in the North, sandy and granitic in the South--give the Beaujolais wines their trademark fruity aromas. The character of the wines reflect the variety of the soils. Beaujolais can be light and crisp, strong and structured, even rich, almost mineral like. In fact, many French don't even realize that Beaujolais wine stretches over such a wide palate.
History
The tradition of beaujolais nouveau hasn't been handed down through generations. Unlike many French traditions, this one is no older than the American tradition of fast food. During the 19th century, wine producers and traders from the Beaujolais region began commercializing their harvest earlier than most other regions. With the onset of Fall, boatloads of 215 liter barrels floated down the Saone to reach Lyon and its famous bouchon restaurants. Such was the amount of wine carried by the river that the French now say three rivers run through Lyon: the Rhone, the Saone, and Beaujolais. But no idea of Beaujolais noveau existed. Yet.
Officially, the idea of beaujolais nouveau didn't start until 1951, when the Journal Officiel, the record of all legal decrees, published a law forbidding all AOC wines to flow from their barrels before December 15. This meant for a 1951 vintage, the wine could not stop fermenting before December 15, 1951. The Beaujolais producers, who for almost a century had been getting a jump on wine sales, protested. Their argument? Beaujolais is a vin de primeur, best when drunk young, before the New Year if possible. When left to ferment too long, the wine begins to lose its fruity punch. The wine makers won their case and ever since, Beaujolais and a handful of other meant-to-be-drunk-young wines have been filling bistro carafes a few weeks before their red and white siblings.
In 1985, after several modifications of the official date, the third Thursday of November was designated. 1985 produced a river's worth of wine—13 million liters—and the wine makers needed a little extra time to bottle their ruby river. Ever since, wine lovers all over the world have had to wait until midnight, the third Wednesday of November to dip their lips in the year's youngest wine. This means that, thanks to time zones, Japanese oenophiles will be trying to discern the raspberry and currant hints hours before the French can even get their noses into the wine glass.
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