Independent Wine Education Guild
Celebrate Beaujolais Nouveau Day
Every year, under French law, the new vintage of a distinct red wine from the Beaujolais region of France is released on the third Thursday in November. Known as Beaujolais Nouveau, the youthful wine is made from Gamay grapes and is bottled ready to drink in just 6-8 weeks after harvest. Traditionally a celebration to recognize the end of a long, exhausting French wine harvest, Beaujolais Nouveau Day has grown to become an anticipatory event and even a race to release the wines to fans worldwide.
Beaujolais Nouveau is a fresh and straightforward wine that tastes best when chilled. The wine is made using a winemaking technique called carbonic maceration, in which whole grapes are fermented in a carbon dioxide rich environment prior to crushing. This method creates a fruity wine with aromas of red berries, banana and bubblegum and very low tannins. It is an inexpensive wine that is meant to be drunk right away rather than store and age.
The rapid rise in global marketing and popularity of Beaujolais Nouveau has not been without controversy. Decline in quality in the 1990s led to consumer pushback against the wine style, and the public distaste overshadowed the quality winemaking and burgeoning excitement for more sophisticated Beaujolais wines being made in the region to this day.
But perhaps during a year of uncertainty, the predictable timing and taste of a Beaujolais Nouveau is what we all need. And while we can’t enjoy a bottle or two with friends right now, we can still get a taste of what wine lovers around the globe wait for each year.
Learn more about Beaujolais Nouveau and other important wines online with Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) Level 2 Award in Wine at the Independent Wine Education Guild.
The WSET Level 2 Award in Wines online course explores the style and quality of wines made from over 22 regionally important grape varieties produced in over 70 wine growing regions around the world.
Independent Wine Education Guild
Excellence in Wine, Spirits and Sake Education Since 1977
IWEG Drinks Academy is the original and only Canadian school to offer all programs and qualifications of the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) — including the flagship “WSET Level 4 Diploma in Wines” program — leading to internationally recognized certification in wine, spirits and sake.
WSET programs, widely considered the "Gold Standard" in wine education, are now offered in more than seventy countries across the globe. IWEG is the recipient of the prestigious WSET Lifetime Achievement Award for spearheading establishment of the WSET program in Canada and for excellence in wine and spirit education since 1977.
IWEG also offers Wine Scholar Guild's French Wine Scholar (FWS) and Italian Wine Scholar (IWS) courses, and Wines of Chile Academy and Wines of Portugal Academy certifications. IWEG is the 2017 Italian Wine Scholar Program Provider of the Year. Our unique Ontario’s Brave New Wines course, now in it’s fifth year, leads to Ontario Wine Specialist certification.
Our scheduling is diverse and flexible, offering in-class or online study; day or evening classes; and condensed or less intensive formats as well as custom corporate programming.
With over forty years of operation, IWEG is passionate about helping our students achieve their personal or professional goals. Our instructors are subject- area experts and professionally trained educators, dedicated to student engagement and success. For more information about IWEG’s wine, spirits and sake courses and events, visit www.iweg.org.
