Le Beaujolais Nouveau n'est pas arrivé ……. but it will be here in less than a fortnight! The third Thursday in November this year is Thursday 17 November and at 00.01 on this day bottles of this year's 'new wine' from Beaujolais in France are released and will be on sale. There is not quite the same razzmatazz around this significant wine 'event' as in the 1960s and 70s but appreciating that we are being offered the first fruits of the northern hemisphere's 2022 harvest must surely be a cause for celebration? Personally, I love the idea that the tradition of making, bottling and selling a wine within 6 to 8 weeks of the grapes being picked captures our imagination and each year I try to seek out a couple of bottles to celebrate and to compare. The fact that anything worthy of drinking is possible within this timescale fascinates me but perhaps it is simply the rapid payback to winemakers for their time and effort within 2 months that continues to make it a financially viable proposition. Technically Beaujolais Nouveau is a 'vin primeur', a very young wine that is light, characterful, and particularly drinkable. It has undergone what is known as carbonic maceration, a winemaking process that enhances light, fresh red wines to make them softer and fruitier. A number of online wine retailers (Tanners, Cambridge Wine Merchants, Wickham Wines) are taking pre-orders for this year's wine and sourcing their nouveaux from different producers. But if past experience is anything to go by you could well find bottles on the wine shelves in M&S and Waitrose. It is certainly worth checking them out. In recent years I have enjoyed comparing the two.
It is also worth pointing out that 'new release' wines in the light nouveau style are no longer unique to Beaujolais, or even France for that matter. We've been in Italy in November before now and enjoyed a 'vino novello' within weeks of the harvest. In fact, the Italian wine is released before Beaujolais, typically on 11 November when Italians celebrate San Martino. And how about the idea of an English nouveau? Well, Sharpham Wine have been experimenting with new release white wines from grapes grown beside the River Dart in Devon since 1999 and Hush Heath Estate in Kent has released a red English nouveau from Pinot Noir grapes to coincide with Beaujolais nouveau more recently. What I do know for certain is that this year Waitrose will again be selling an English Nouveau "in the spirit of Beaujolais Nouveau" made from Pinot Noir at Sixteen Ridges Vineyard in Herefordshire.
Although the universal excitement over the release of Beaujolais Nouveau on 17 November is not what it used to be my son tells me folks still go wild in celebration in South Wales. I had to investigate ….. and it is really true. Apparently Beaujolais Day is one of the biggest events of the year in Swansea as this BBC News piece from 2016 demonstrated, and it is still going strong. Restaurants, bars, and hotels are all putting on special events this month and as the Chief Executive of the Business Improvement District notes, it is "one of the key calendar dates for city centre businesses and the event is very good for the local economy as a whole, be it across clothing, the beauty businesses, and hospitality". In fact, the city makes such a good go of it that they launched an annual Rioja Day for the summer too in 2019! (It's on 9 June in case you're interested).
Comments
Post a Comment