21 Nov 2017

Hundreds of wine and cheese lovers on November 17 thronged Alliance Française in Gaborone where France-Botswana Business Club (FBBC) had organised the first ever Beaujolais Nouveau Day which originates from France.

Beaujolais Nouveau Day is marked in France on the third Thursday of November with fireworks, music and festivals.

Under French Law, the wine is released at 1201 am just weeks after the wine’s grapes have been harvested.

According to Fabrice Gaossen of Camusat Company, who is also a member of the FBBC, parties were held throughout the country and further afield to celebrate the first wine of the season and this time around they saw it fit to extend this wine celebration occasion to Botswana as it among others promoted culture, trade and business.       

Batswana came in large numbers as compared to other nationalities living in Gaborone and they were slowly accustoming themselves to wine tradition much as they have adapted to beer drinking tradition, which dates to colonial era.

In the meantime, Gaossen thanked the sponsors of the event who included Orange Botswana, AGS, Total, Parmalat, Bollore Logistique, Mazars and Camusat.

According to Wikipedia, Beaujolais Nouveau is red wine made from Gamay grapes produced in the Beaujolais region of France.

It is the most popular vin de primeur, fermented for just a few weeks before being released for sale on the third Thursday of November.

This Beaujolais Nouveau Day used to see heavy marketing, with races to get the first bottles to different markets around the globe.

The current release practice is to ship the wine ahead of the third Thursday of November, and release it to the local market at 1201 am local time.

History behind this states that Beaujolais had always made a vin de L’annee to celebrate the end of the harvest, but until World War II it was only for local consumption.

In fact, once the Beaujolais AOC was established in 1937, AOC rules meant that Beaujolais wine could only be officially sold after December 15 in the year of harvest.

These rules were relaxed on November 13, 1951, and the Union Inter-professionalle des Vins du Beaujolais (UIVB) formally set November 15 as the release date for what would henceforth be known as Beaujolais Nouveau.

A few members of the UIVB saw the potential for marketing Beaujolais Nouveau. Not only was it a way to clear lots of vin ordinaire at good profit, but selling wine within weeks of the harvest was great for cash flow.

Hence, the idea was born of a race to Paris carrying the first bottles of the new vintage.

That attracted a lot of media coverage, and by the 1970s had become a national event and spread to neighbouring countries in Europe in the 1980s, followed by North America, and in the 1990s to Asia.

In 1985, the date was changed to third Thursday in November to take best advantage of marketing in the following weekend. ENDS