Join us in Singapore’s first annual Beaujolais Nouveau Festival. We will celebrate with a street fair atmosphere of French food and an abundance of the Beaujolais Nouveau wine! There will be music, drinking, dancing and chance encounters with the Beaujolais girls!!!
Click here for detail www.sbnf.com.sg/
AT ONE MINUTE PAST MIDNIGHT on the third Thursday of each November, from little villages and towns like Romanèche-Thorins, over a million cases of Beaujolais Nouveau begin their journey through a sleeping France to Paris for immediate shipment to all parts of the world. Banners proclaim the good news: Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé! “The New Beaujolais has arrived!” One of the most frivolous and animated rituals in the wine world has begun.
By the time it is over, over 65 million bottles, nearly half of the region’s total annual production, will be distributed and drunk around the world. It has become a worldwide race to be the first to serve to this new wine of the harvest. In doing so, it has been carried by motorcycle, balloon, truck, helicopter, Concorde jet, elephant, runners and rickshaws to get it to its final destination. It is amazing to realize that just weeks before this wine was a cluster of grapes in a growers vineyard. But by an expeditious harvest, a rapid fermentation, and a speedy bottling, all is ready at the midnight hour.
By French law, Beaujolais Nouveau is to be released no earlier than the third Thursday of November.
Beaujolais Nouveau began as a local phenomenon in the local bars, cafes, and bistros of Beaujolais and Lyons. Each fall the new Beaujolais would arrive with much fanfare. In pitchers filled from the growers barrels, wine was drunk by an eager population. It was wine made fast to drink while the better Beaujolais was taking a more leisurely course. Eventually, the government stepped into regulate the sale of all this quickly transported, free-flowing wine.
In 1938 regulations and restrictions were put in place to restrict the where, when, and how of all this carrying on. After the war years, in 1951, these regulations were revoked by the region’s governing body he Union Interprofessional des Vins de Beaujolais (UIVB)and the Beaujolais Nouveau was officially recognized. The official release date was set for November 15th. Beaujolais Nouveau was officially born. By this time, what was just a local tradition had gained so much popularity that the news of it reached Paris. The race was born. It wasn’t long thereafter that the word spilled out of France and around the world. In 1985, the date was again changed, this time to the third Thursday of November tying it to a weekend and making the celebration complete. But wherever the new Beaujolais went, importers had to agree not to sell it before midnight on the third Thursday of November…
作者：Winnie
一年一度的法国薄若莱新酒节（Beaujolais Nouveau）到了。讲起葡萄酒的节日，早在古希腊，崇尚酒神Dionysus的古希腊人在每年12月的月底要举行葡萄酒节，庆祝当年新酒的诞生。信奉酒神Bacchus的古罗马人，秉承了相应的传统。在历史的很长一段时间里，葡萄酒与宗教信仰有着密不可分的渊源。随着宗教在人们生活中的弱化和淡出，葡萄酒作为宗教祭祀礼仪用酒的角色越来越轻，宗教意义上的葡萄酒的节日也渐渐销声匿迹了。法国薄若莱新酒节是现代社会里，以葡萄酒为主题的不多的节日之一。现已成为世界范围庆祝当年葡萄收获和酿制的节日。并让许多人感到好似那被怀念的古罗马酒神节复兴。
薄若莱新酒节出现于二战后。年底饮用当年新酒，在当时里昂当地酒吧里很是流行。随后流传到巴黎以至欧洲其他地方。70年代末到整个80年代，是鼎盛时期。风靡整个世界，亚洲、美洲都被感染带动。最初，新酒节是每年的11月15日。人们会在14日零时启程，赶着盛满新酒的马车从薄若莱飞奔巴黎。像竞赛一样，看谁家的新酒第一个抵达。送到那些期盼已久的winelover手中、口中和腹中。渴望的人们会欢迎、庆祝新酒的到来，狂欢激动的盛况是可以想见的。随着时代的发展，这样严格意义上限时发售和运输竞赛的传统方式已经不存在了。人们会把新酒提前运到法国的各个港口机场，等到允许发售的时间一到就立刻搭载各种交通工具奔赴世界各地。更甚者，新酒会提前被运到一些国家的当地，只等允许发售的日子一到，同时面世。另外为了商业目的，新酒节也从每年的11月15日改为11月的第三个星期四，方便人们周末Party……
http://www.winechina.com/news/readnews.asp?ID=693
http://www.wines-info.com/html/176/1248.html