Coming soon - Time to celebrate Beaujolais Nouveau

If like me you live in a wine area then now is a busy time with end of vendange balls after a lot of back breaking work and purple hands. November is eagerly awaited as it sees the release of Beaujolais Nouveau, but did you know there are a huge number of fetes surrounding it's release?


PROGRAMME FESTIVITÉS BEAUJOLAIS NOUVEAU 2015



Worth considering for a short break - and did you know you can stay with the winemakers during this festival?


SE LOGER CHEZ LES VITICULTEURS


Vous cherchez un endroit pour vous loger durant le week-end du Beaujolais Nouveau 2015. Des viticulteurs peuvent vous louer des gîtes. Vous serez au coeur de la fête.


Contactez les :



Vous pouvez également vous loger en chambre d’hôtes :



Do you enjoy trying the Beaujolais Nouveau each year? In our area they refer to Vin Primeur which is a wine which can be consumed in the year in which it was harvested often very fruity. If you haven't discovered this yet - give it a go...and let us know what you think?

Suzanne we are very close to the Beaujolais here in Southern Burgundy and have our Beaujolais delivered to the house.
We do not bother with the Nouveau but last year’s is lovely, full of cherry.

I lived in France in the first half of the 70's and was introduced to Beaujolais Nouveau. It was explained to me by my French colleagues that it was young wine that was basically not worth laying down. The producers were offloading the stuff at really bargain basin prices which meant that the producers got some cash back before the usual maturing period. It was in essence a marketing wheeze. Then later in the 70's some Brits got the idea that this was an old tradition that needed to be encouraged in the UK which is when suddenly it became "la mode" inevitably leading to high demand and higher prices. I stopped buying because good mature Beaujolais became cheaper than the stuff that was essentially immature rubbish.

I note that I can now buy Rioja Joven at less than £4 a bottle which makes it an acceptable plonk. I doubt that the marketeers will manage to work the same miracle for this wine as they did for Beaujolais still there is no accounting for human gullibility.

There's time yet before one past midnight on the third Thursday of November - this year it will be on the 19th.

Whoever decided to promote le Beaujolais primeur in Japan had a stroke of genius, because other people followed the Japanese in consuming what is well-described here :

http://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/societe/2014/11/20/31003-20141120ARTFIG00288-le-beaujolais-nouveau-une-affreuse-piquette-qui-donne-mal-au-crane.php