Can you imagine live music, great food, a barrel race and lots of wine?
For many of these reasons, the Beaujolais Nouveau Festival is one of the most expected dates for the wine lovers of all over the world.
But... What is the Beaujolais Nouveau festival? Which is its origin? Why is this youthful wine so famous? When does the festival take place? How do they make the wine so fast? These are some of the questions that I`ll try to answer in this post.
For many of these reasons, the Beaujolais Nouveau Festival is one of the most expected dates for the wine lovers of all over the world.
But... What is the Beaujolais Nouveau festival? Which is its origin? Why is this youthful wine so famous? When does the festival take place? How do they make the wine so fast? These are some of the questions that I`ll try to answer in this post.
Beaujolais Nouveau is a red wine famous for been released soon after the harvest (on the first Tuesday of November). This wine is produced in a region of France with the same name, this area is protected with an AOC ("Appellation origin Contrôlée") This means that, if you want to make Beaujolais wine, you must follow certain rules. To produce Beaujolais nouveau, you need to use Gamay grapes that comes from the Beaujolais AOC and the whole process needs to be done in the area, or it cannot be named Beaujolais Nouveau
The Grape:
Gamay (Gamay noir à jus blanc) is the only grape that can be used for the Beaujolais Nouveau wine (“cru” Beaujolais grapes are excluded). This grape was first brought to France by the Romans and it´s a purple-colored grape that produces a light body and fruity red wines.
The Festival
In the region of Beaujolais, there´s a tradition of making vin de l'année (youthful wine) to celebrate the end of the harvest. This celebration takes place on the first Tuesday of November, which is also known as the “Beaujolais Nouveau day” internationally.
In France, the festival includes wine tasting, live music, great food, the annual bottle race and other activities that take place not only in the vineyards of Beaujolais, but also in the streets of the city and other nearby cities including Paris.
The annual race takes place in Lyon, at 12:01am on Thursday. The warehouses are unlocked and barrels of Beaujolais Nouveau wine are rolled through the center, before being opened.
Other counties that also celebrate the “Beaujolais Nouveau day” can acquire bottles of this wine the same day of the festival and celebrate in their own countries. For this reason, the producers of these wines compete to place their bottles on these different markets. Therefore, the bottles are shipped a few weeks before the end of the harvest, so that they can arrive on time.
In France, the festival includes wine tasting, live music, great food, the annual bottle race and other activities that take place not only in the vineyards of Beaujolais, but also in the streets of the city and other nearby cities including Paris.
The annual race takes place in Lyon, at 12:01am on Thursday. The warehouses are unlocked and barrels of Beaujolais Nouveau wine are rolled through the center, before being opened.
Other counties that also celebrate the “Beaujolais Nouveau day” can acquire bottles of this wine the same day of the festival and celebrate in their own countries. For this reason, the producers of these wines compete to place their bottles on these different markets. Therefore, the bottles are shipped a few weeks before the end of the harvest, so that they can arrive on time.
Nearly half the production of this wine is exported and drink all over the world. Mainly it`s exported to Germany and Japan, followed by the USA
However, it is always recommended to avoid bottle shock and to let the bottles rest at least a few weeks after the shipping before being open.
Japan:
It`s not only one of the countries that import more Beaujolais Nouveau wine, but they also love Beaujolais Nouveau day so much that they have their own festival. There`s a big pool full of wine, a French man hosting the event, music, wine tasting and at the end of the event they choose a “Miss Beaujolais”.
United States:
Beaujolais Nouveau day starts a week before Thanksgiving. For this reason the Beaujolais Nouveau wine is promoted as a Thanksgiving drink.
They change their French traditional slogan “Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrive!” for “It`s Beaujolais Nouveau Time! especially for the English speaker market.
Beaujolais Nouveau wine characteristics:
- • Purple color
- • youthful and light bodied.
- • Low in tannins (because if its wine production technique)
- • fresh, soft and fruity
- • Alcohol 11%
- • serving temperature: 55° F (13° C)
- • The labels are always full colors and change every year.
*There is still one question to answer “how do they produce this wine so fast?” The secret of making this wine so fast that it can be ready at the end of the harvest is the carbonic maceration. This winemaking technique unlike the traditional yeast-fueled fermentation allows a faster production and also give the wine peculiar characteristics.
I found carbonic maceration quite interesting so I decided to create a post to explain it in detail.
I found carbonic maceration quite interesting so I decided to create a post to explain it in detail.
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