Beaujolais Nouveau goes on sale at 12:01 a.m.
TOKYO —
Beaujolais Nouveau wine went on sale in Japan at 12:01 Thursday morning. In Tokyo, 600 wine enthusiasts gathered Wednesday for a countdown party held by the EU.
The third Thursday in November traditionally marks the official debut of the new season’s Beaujolais around the world, and the Japanese are the first to get a taste of the light red wine because of their time zone.
The bottles are priced between 2,500 and 4,000 yen, but major supermarket AEON is selling the wine in 750-milliliter PET bottles for 500 yen—as part of its one-coin drink campaign.
A spokesman for importer Suntory said that Japan will import about 7.2 million bottles of the wine this year. The record for Japan was 12.5 million bottles sold in 2004.
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31 Comments
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0
namabiru4me
This means my local liquor store is going to suggest I buy this crap every time I go there for the next month. :-(
0
gyouza
You'd think Australia/NZ would be first, but I guess that as they have some pretty good wines themselves, they don't need to 'celebrate'? ;) Then again, the chance of cheap drink at about midnight might keep the party fires burning a bit longer into the wee hours?
3
chikasho
These days there are so many types of wine from all over the world at reasonable prices (many undrinkable). Why is it that people buy this French plonk and pay through the nose? Amazed again
0
Gurukun
Wine out of a PET bottle? um...no. Just doesn't seem right.
-2
calm down
Aussies have drunk from plastic casks for donkeys years..purpose there and here is to get plastered cheaply, as kindly as the taste buds allow..
1
mikediab
is this news or ad ? if this is news,makes you wonder what the fuss is about.
0
Weasel
I guess Boone's Farm's Strawberry Hill and Night Train Express' 2011 holiday wines will be out for sale next week?
0
crustpunker
why can't you buy 40's here?
0
theeastisred
So with the 'one coin' drinks, can we choose what kind of coin to use? I think I would choose a nice yellowish coin with a hole in the middle, or perhaps a compact aluminium one.
3
cleo
¥500 isn't bad, if it's a full bottle. My local off-license (before it unsurprisingly went out of business) for many years gave pride of place on its shelves to a bottle of 1995 'vintage' BN, with a ¥3,000 price tag.
0
borscht
I wonder how many know their wines.
0
Nessie
The earlier the better. Let's get this over with.
5
Nessie
Drinking 10yo BN would be lik eating antique sushi.
2
Frungy
All I need to know about this "wine". The nouveau in its title means it has been mixed with acetic acid (vinegar) to make it seem aged when actually it's far to young to drink. In short this is faux-wine, little more than grape juice mixed with vinegar and pushed out on the unsuspecting Japanese public.
Anyone who knows anything about wine wouldn't be caught drinking "nouveau" anything.
-1
Virtuoso
I can buy grape juice right now, and I prefer it to this rancid French ripoff.
-1
some14some
JT should open 'online' shop for this particular item only :)
3
mrsynik
They're not wine enthusiasts. Wine 'enthusiasts' would not drink this muck if you paid them.
3
Reinaert Albrecht
The good news is that the amount of this vinegar being imported is going down. Only seven million bottles this years as opposed to 12.5 million 7 years ago. This means that even the japanese can't be fooled forever.
1
Nicky Washida
Shame. Ive enjoyed this huge joke over the years. Ah well, all good things come to an end I suppose.
-4
Nicky Washida
Lets start selling them spam as "English wagyu" next. Or how about passing haddock off as "English fugu"? No, no, Ive got it - Ribena is fortified wine - thatll work.
0
jinjapan
weasel, you're bringing back some serious memories there. don't forget the md 20-20 & thunderbird.
0
nutsagain
This reflects just how misunderstood wine is in this country. BJ is silly wine for silly people who belong in the bubble age when this rubbish made an entry for the yuppies flush with money and no taste.
0
calm down
This years exports stats say that the 2nd biggest importing nation of 'silly people' is the USA 2.4 million bottles,and the 3rd you can try the spam as wagyu on is the Germans(1.2 )..thats a lot of dumb people who really should listen to the posters here and drink and enjoy what they're told to .
7
choiwaruoyaji
Had some Beaujolais Nouveau with colleagues after work today.
It was quite nice and, as always, had that beautiful pink/purple color.
I always chuckle at the foreigners in Japan who think they are oh-so-more-sophisticated than the Japanese in regards to wine drinking.
It's so boring to listen to grumpy foreigners giving us their "pearls of wisdom" about Beaujolais Nouveau.
I'd much rather enjoy a few glasses of it with laughter and friendship with my Japanese work colleagues...
5
choiwaruoyaji
If people attempt sarcasm they might at least try to make it funny...
0
TorafusuTorasan
@Nicky, exotic wagyu Spam,
Okinawan cuisine holds Spam in special regard. I was at an Okinawan concert here in the Kansai area recently and--no joke--the merch table had rows of spam next to the sata andagi. Too funny.
Canned Spam can be found at specialty import foods shops--the same ones that probably sell this BN stuff. It's probably easier to buy Spam than the goya you need to complete the champuru recipe.
-2
yabits
I'm not sure if "surprised" or "amazed" is the right word to describe the popularity (and expense) of Beaujolais Nouveau in Japan. Definitely amazed at the price of the stuff, which is dirt-cheap here in the States -- with good reason.
1
nec123a
the most overrated and pointless event in world wine.
1
taj
Yabits, at Y500 a bottle, it's dirt-cheap here, too. And even at that sales have dropped off drastically in recent years.
So, it's onto the next unsuspecting countries for the BN PR machine. "Hey, China! Guess what!"
Still, I've always enjoyed the festivity and although I'll just stick to beer that night, it's nice to have the annual excuse for parties.
0
smithinjapan
Was given two bottles of it last night as a gift, so I really can't complain (though the stuff is more or less swill). I still can't get over the PET bottle thing... makes a box of wine look relatively high-class.
0
It"S ME
Can't complain about the pet-bottle thing as I had wine from a cardboard box(plastic liner), etc.
Wine, etc no longer mature/improve once they are taken out of the casks, so the container they are sold in don't really matter taste-wise. Feeling, etc is another matter, more about presentation.
Said that not my taste in wines anyway.
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