In France, Beaujolais Nouveau Day is a reverent, almost ritualistic celebration of one of the country’s best known varieties of wine – where producers roll the first barrels down the street to local bistrots, accompanied by revellers with torches.
And then there’s Swansea.
Last night, partygoers spilled out onto the streets of Britain’s Beaujolais capital in their droves to mark the day of the wine’s release – laid down in French law as the third Thursday of November.
Young women braved temperatures as low as –2C in strappy dresses and high heels – and towards the end of the night many looked a little worse for wear.
Beaujolais Nouveau is released just weeks after its Gamay grapes are harvested, and the first uncorkings are celebrated in France with street parties.
But its popularity grew in Britain too. In the 1970s, a wager between wine writers Joseph Berkmann and Clement Freud to be the first to bring the first bottles back to London continues to this day as a charity event.
A poster even appeared behind the bar in Del Boy’s infamous pratfall scene in Only Fools And Horses.
Sales of the wine peaked in the 1980s. However, it developed a reputation as being cheap plonk that quickly loses its flavour, and once had an aftertaste unfavourably compared to banana.
But the wine’s flavour is developing thanks to changes in the soil, attributed to climate change, bringing about a revival of this ‘vin de primeur’ – a wine sold the same year it is bottled.
French newspaper of record Le Figaro now regards it as ‘almost a vin de garde’ – a wine for ageing before it is drunk.
That particular stance wasn’t taken on the streets of South Wales, however. Some partygoers appeared to have enjoyed rather a lot of it towards the end of the night.
And for some, the evening didn’t go to plan, with at least one woman being led away in handcuffs by police.
Swansea is inextricably linked with Beaujolais Nouveau Day thanks to former Wales rugby international Clem Thomas, who once ran the city’s No Sign Wine Bar.
Thomas had a house in France and would bring Beaujolais Nouveau back to his watering hole for locals to sample for themselves.
His son, Chris, told the BBC last year that it was a ‘pivotal day’ for the city’s pubs. At the No Sign, takings would go from £5,000 in a week to up to £15,000 on Beaujolais Nouveau Day alone.
Venues across the city effectively treat it as an early Christmas, with demand for tables to match the peak of the festive period and marquees put up to accommodate the swell of drinkers who come out to play on the third Thursday of the month.
Events marking Beaujolais Nouveau were altogether more reverent in France.
On the streets of Beaujeu, the capital of the region that gives the wine its name, revellers held candles at Les Sarmentelles, the five day festival marking the wine’s release.
Les Sarmentelles – meaning ‘the vines’ – features live music and wine tasting, as well as inductions into le Ordre des Compagnons du Beaujolais, an organisation dedicated to promoting wines from across the region.
In Lyon, a short distance to the south–east, producers rolled the first barrels of the wine down the street.
In Paris people sampled the new vintage at grocery stores and bistrots across the capital.
Production volumes of the wine have dropped this year, however, due to changeable weather. This year’s harvest was smaller than expected.
But growers say it has developed into a wine of quality, rather than quantity.
‘We were told beaujolais nouveau was over – but the more years go by and the more we make, the proof is we were practically out of stock on the eve of [the day]. We’ve never sold so much,’ winemaker Marine Rivière told France 24.
