Eternally youthful Beaujolais Nouveau turns 60

Paris - Sixty years old and the body of a newborn. Thursday marks 60 years since Beaujolais Nouveau first went on sale in mid-November, marking the arrival of the first wines from the French harvest.

The hype around the annual launch of Beaujolais Nouveau, a young red wine that is sold within weeks of the grapes being harvested in the south-eastern French region of Beaujolais, has propelled the wine to international stardom.

Starting in Japan and moving west with the sun, tens of thousands of bottles of the 'vin de primeur' - a young wine, which cannot be stored - will be popped open at midnight Thursday, when Beaujolais Nouveau goes on sale worldwide.

According to Inter Beaujolais, an association representing more than 3,000 wine producers and merchants in south-east France, 2011 is one of the better Beaujolais vintages.

'This year, the Beaujolais benefited from almost ideal weather conditions, marked by lots of sunshine, starting in spring, but particularly by low levels of summer rain,' the association said in a press release.

The good weather meant the grapes had matured three weeks earlier than last year, yielding wines that were 'neither red fruits, nor dark fruits but the two combined ... with plenty of finesse and a good, rich colour.'

Across France, wine cellars, bars and restaurants were waiting to crack open their supplies and hang signs in their window heralding the arrival of the new Beaujolais.

Inside a Nicolas store in Paris's 12th district, boxes of the wine, which sell for between 4.50 euros and 6.50 euros, lay waiting for the stroke of midnight.

Not that Didier Cohen-Selmon, manager of the store that is part of the Nicolas chain, plans on staying up late to ring in the new vintage.

'Beaujolais Nouveau has gone out of fashion somewhat,' he says.

There was a time when wine cellars used to remain open past midnight to sell the first bottles of the wine, which are made from grapes that are macerated for only four or five days, giving a fruity wine that is low in tannins.

'People used to organize get-togethers in each others' houses to taste it. Companies used to organize midday drinks and snacks for the arrival of Beaujolais Nouveau. That's disappearing,' says Cohen-Selmon.

From about 2,000 bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau in a season 10 years ago, his sales have fallen to under 1,000 today, he says.

It's a trend reflected in overall sales for Beaujolais Nouveau. This year, 280,000-300,000 hectolitres of the wine are expected to be sold, down from 450,000-500,000 hectolitres in the wine's heyday in the 1990s.

At a time of growing sophistication in food and wine tastes, the main issue seems to be quality.

'It's not a very good product,' admits Patrice Turlais, manager of the popular L'Englantine bistro in the 12th district. 'If you drink a lot of Beaujolais Nouveau, you'll have a headache the next day.

That taste doesn't appear to be a turnoff in Tokyo.

Japan accounts for about half of all exports of Beaujolais Nouveau, with the Japanese knocking back 7 million bottles out of the 15.5 million bottles sold in 110 countries last year.

The United States was the second-biggest export destination, absorbing some 2.4 million bottles.

For future growth, Beaujolais producers are looking to emerging markets.

'Brazil and Russia are really coming up, China a bit less,' Jean Bourjade of Inter Beaujolais told dpa. 'These Chinese still prefer Bordeaux.'