Happy Beaujolais Nouveau Day 2022!

Today is the third Thursday of November and that means it’s Beaujolais Nouveau Day — the day the current vintage of Beaujolais Nouveau is released to the public.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Beaujolais Nouveau is a wine from the Beaujolais wine region of France, made from Gamay grapes. “Nouveau” translates to mean “new,” which is a reference to the youth of this wine — bottled approximately 6-8 weeks after harvesting the grapes, which is uncommon compared with most other wine. The roots of Beaujolais Nouveau date back to the 1800s, when wine producers would celebrate the end of the harvest with a toast and a taste of the young wines resulting from the harvest.

Beaujolais Nouveau is intentionally bottled early and is intended to be consumed within a few months of bottling. This is not wine for ageing. It is a youthful expression of the Beaujolais vintage. There are other, non-nouveau versions of Beaujolais that are released much later after harvest, allowing those wines to fully mature. Beaujolais Nouveau can give wine lovers a sneak peek at what those other Beaujolais wines might offer from this vintage.

This is not, however, just an early release of the same wine that will be fully matured at the winery and released later. The production of Beaujolais Nouveau is done using techniques to optimize the taste of the wine as an early release wine. For example, fermentation is done using carbonic maceration, which helps bring out the expression of fruit aromas and flavors without extracting harsh tannins from the grape skins. As such, Beaujolais Nouveau is a unique thing and it should be appreciated for what it is.

When I was in my early 20s and just getting into wine (but really didn’t know anything about wine yet), I was always excited for Beaujolais Nouveau season. Then, once I started to really get into wine and had a little more knowledge about it, I got snobbish and poo-pooed the idea of Beaujolais Nouveau as an unsophisticated wine. But I was the one with the problem, not the wine. I’ve come full circle now and I once again appreciate Beaujolais Nouveau.

If nothing else, you have to give props to the PR and marketing success the Beaujolais region has had from this wine. I cannot think of any other wine with such a well-known and celebrated drop date. In fact, I can’t think of a single other wine for which I’m aware of its drop date! Not one.

Georges Duboeuf 2022 Beaujolais Nouveau

While many wine producers from Beaujolais release Beaujolais Nouveau wines, it seems there’s none as well known as Georges Duboeuf. For me, Beaujolais Nouveau is nearly synonymous with Georges Duboeuf, who release three different Nouveau wines that I know of: Beaujolais Nouveau, Beaujolais Nouveau Rosé and Beaujolais-Villages Nouveau. Today, I’m sticking with the most common one you’ll encounter, the Georges Duboeuf 2022 Beaujolais Nouveau.

Tasting Notes

There’s one note I almost always find on the nose of Beaujolais Nouveau, which I can only describe as strawberry bubble gum. It’s a bright strawberry fragrance that smells sweet-ish, but once you taste it you are reassured that this is a dry, not sweet, wine. This one also offers some brambly, black raspberry, floral and white pepper aromas. On the palate it delivers surprisingly rich black raspberry, strawberry and spice flavors with bright acidity and a touch of tea-like tannin. The mouthfeel has an ever-so-slight effervescence, as you can get from such a young wine. The finish is also surprisingly long and rich for a nouveau.

This wine is quite nice. So nice that it has me quite curious to taste the non-nouveau Beaujolais from this vintage, once it has properly matured and been released.

Wine: Georges Duboeuf 2022 Beaujolais Nouveau
Varieties: 100% Gamay
Vintage: 2022
Alcohol: 13%
Rating: 88
Average price: $14.99
Disclosure: This wine was received as a media sample.