Beaujolais Nouveau Day has already passed, but this year’s wines are excellent and can certainly be purchased even after the third Thursday in November. Beaujolais Nouveau has experienced something of a renaissance.
Many wine consumers today are looking for fruity, easy drinking, and flavourful wines and that is exactly what a Beaujolais Nouveau will offer. The wines are shipped to 100 countries worldwide, but France still drinks the most, with 9 million bottles every year. The rest of the world consumes 5.5 million bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau. Although most bottles are sold and drunk soon after the release, the producers’ association in Beaujolais points out that Beaujolais Nouveau can definitely handle a bit of aging, and one may even be pleasantly surprised by the result.
Today, Beaujolais Nouveau represents 22% of the total production in Beaujolais. The entire Beaujolais region consists of 12 different appellations covering 12,500 hectares. The only red grape permitted is gamay.
Very recently, a new book on Beaujolais (not only nouveau) was published: The Wines of Beaujolais, by Natasha Hughes.
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