Les vins nouveaux sont arrivés !

The third Thursday in November is the day the Beaujolais Nouveau (or Primeur) wines are released. You can probably already find Beaujolais Nouveau in most wine stores and even many supermarkets in the U.S. today.

Click the picture to enlarge it so you can read the labels.

Here in France, other wines and regions have been getting into the act as well. The best known "new" wine after Beaujolais is probably Touraine Nouveau. Touraine is our region, and the primary red wine grape grown here is Gamay, just as it is in Beaujolais. So it makes sense.

Gamay from the Beaujolais region

Today at the big SuperU market in Contres, the new wines had a place of honor in the front of the store. And there we saw not only Beaujolais Nouveau and Touraine Primeur, but Côtes du Rhone Primeur and — surprisingly, because it's a white wine — Muscadet Nouveau.

Gamay from the Touraine region

We bought a selection of these young wines to try over the coming weekend. It doesn't take much to convince us to buy a new wine!