Paris - As has been the custom every year since 1985, shortly
after midnight French time on the third Thursday of November 2008,
wine drinkers around the world celebrated the new vintage of the
Beaujolais Nouveau.
But this year's party may have been celebrated with a little less
gusto than usual in the French wine-growing region of Beaujolais, as
sales of the light, fruity wine continued to fall abroad.
'It's clear, exports are falling. They have been falling for years.
And this year we are again selling less abroad,' said Bernard George,
director of exports at Georges Duboeuf, France's largest Beaujolais
merchant.
Jean-Louis Berges, general director of the large wine trading house
Boisset, agreed that the wine's future as a money-making product was
less than rosy.
'It is becoming more and more of a non-event,' he said. 'There is a
growing disinterest in the wine in many countries.'
The Beaujolais Nouveau phenomenon began as a local wine-maker's
custom and then grew, through a brilliant marketing strategy, into a
global success story, with some 62 million bottles sold at its peak,
in 1998.
A 'premature wine' that is fermented for only a few weeks,
Beaujolais Nouveau was originally produced so that local wine-growers
and their friends could celebrate the end of the Beaujolais harvest.
However, some wine merchants, such as Georges Duboeuf, soon
recognized its marketing potential, and they set up a race to Paris to
deliver the first bottles of the wine to the capital.
By 1970, this had become a national event. By 1985, the release of
the Beaujolais Nouveau was an international ritual, with the third
Thursday in November established as the official delivery date.
In the 1990s, the phenomenon spread to Asia, where it became an
overnight smash, particularly in Japan.
At its height, in 2004, the Japanese consumed 12.4 million bottles
of the wine. But in 2007, it was down to 8.26 million bottles. This
year, sales in Japan are expected to fall by another 20 per cent, to
about 6.5 million bottles.
According to George, a number of factors have contributed to the
decline of the wine's popularity in Japan, including a new zero-
tolerance drunk driving law.
In addition, he said, 'The Japanese bought too much of the wine
last year and had bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau still on their shelves
in May. This year they are buying just enough to sell out by
Christmas, so they can have room on their shelves for Champagne.'
But the negative trend is not exclusive to Japan. Sales have fallen
in most of its traditional foreign markets. In the United States, for
example, sales declined from an estimated 4 million bottles in 2002 to
2.5 million last year.
In Germany, once the wine's second-largest export market, the
turnaround has been even more dramatic. In 2002, Germans consumed 7
million bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau; in 2007, that number had shrunk
to just 2.1 million.
While no specific numbers are yet available for this year, both
George and Berges said that the drop in foreign sales compared to 2007
will be at least 10 per cent, and perhaps as high as 20 per cent.
A number of factors have contributed to the decline of the fad.
Perhaps most importantly, the rise of the euro against the dollar and
yen and the rising cost of transporting the wine because of high oil
prices have made it increasingly more expensive abroad.
But, Berges said, 'the wine-makers can not lower the price. It is a
question of survival for them.'
In addition, many wine connoisseurs consider it a gimmick product
at best, and rank swill at worst. One wine critic, Karen MacNeil,
compared drinking Beaujolais Nouveau to eating cookie dough.
Berges said that wine-drinking habits were changing, and that there
were 'fewer occasional wine drinkers' who in the past seized the
opportunity of the event to consume a wine that is easy to enjoy.
Anne Masson, spokeswoman for Inter-Beaujolais, the marketing board
for Beaujolais wines, admitted that while sales were rising in small
developing markets, such as China, South Korea and the Czech Republic,
they were down in the larger markets.
As a result, she said, '300,000 hectoliters less Beaujolais Nouveau
is produced each year.'
Berges said that there was 'very little money these days in selling
Beaujolais Nouveau.'
Asked if this meant the end of the wine as a commercially viable
product, he said that it was too soon to tell.
'What we can say is that it is declining, and that it will be
difficult to relaunch,' he said. 'And one day, in the not-too-distant
future, it could be over.'
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