Each year, on the third Thursday of November the season of Beaujolais Nouveau begins. This red wine produced from Gamay grapes in the Beaujolais region of France is the most celebrated young wine or ‘vin de primeur’ in the market. Beaujolais Nouveau owes its deliciousness and easy drinkability to its winemaking method, Carbonic Maceration, or whole berry fermentation. This technique preserves the fresh, fruity quality of the wine, without extracting any harsh bitter tannins from the grapes skins or seeds. Having been fermented for just a couple of weeks the wine is bottled and labeled in its now trademark, thanks to Georges Deboeuf, bright floral prints. Now the race begins for the producers to get this literally ‘new’ wine into the market for the official Beaujolais Nouveau release. Next to Champagne these are the most heavily marketed wines in the world. Many producers and restaurants around the world hold official Beaujolais Nouveau parties on the day of release, which by French law must be the 3rd Thursday in November. Locally, Claret House Wine Bar at Teneriffe held its Beaujo Nouveau launch on the 19th of November with Georges Debouef Nouveau and platters of delicious Charcuterie meats, so good we thought were in Lyon, France!

The 2009 harvest in Beaujolais is being called the best vintage in the last 50 years thanks to perfect weather and growing conditions. This great quality due to lower than average rainfall and a long warm summer, means bunch sizes were smaller than normal allowing the grapes to reach full ripeness. 2009 Beaujolais has good juicy acidity and great fruit concentration with more rich strawberry, dark berry and cherry fruit intensity than previous vintages. Since this fermentation method enhances the fresh berry flavours it is an ideal style to be served slightly chilled, making it the perfect red for the Aussie summer. Great reasons stock up on this years Beaujolais Nouveau or to try some of the Aussie wines made in this early drinking style. There have been recent releases from a number of producers of Nouveau Shiraz and Cadenzia Grenache that are sensational reds for summer drinking, just serve slightly chilled!