Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrive! Or at least, the inaugural shipment of this year's batch touched down last week in Japan, the biggest buyer of the fruity red wine. It's also the first market of note that will begin the business of drinking the stuff in eight days' time.
With Japan accounting for more than half of overseas sales, the scale of post-party hangovers will be a barometer for the central French region's most famous vintage. While Japanese imports gained 10 percent a year over the past three years, volumes remain about a third off their 2004 peak, and a weaker yen is creating headwinds for this year's crop.
"We would be happy for the volume to gain 10 percent once more, but at least, we expect sales to be stable," said Aurelie Vabre, a spokeswoman for Inter Beaujolais, a Villefranche-sur-Saone-based group representing producers.
The Japanese turned crazy for the vintage in the late 1980s, when France let bottles of the weeks-old and barely fermented wine be shipped and stored overseas in advance of the release date at midnight on the third Thursday of November. That meant Japanese consumers were among the first to taste the new vintage, sparking a craze that will see about 8 million bottles quaffed this year in the country.
Source: NewsOnJapan
