Thursday the 20th of November 2025 will be Beaujolais Nouveau day - so how about a few stats to get us going? 15.5 million bottles of Nouveaux were produced in 2023 versus 16.5 million in 2022 - but in 2024, we saw another drop to 14.3 million. That said, 2024 was a much lower-volume harvest - and 2025 wasn't much higher. Unfortunately, for comparison's sake, the 2025 sales volume won't be known for quite some time... The main theme for the 2024 vintage were the losses due to mildew. There was a little of that in 2025 too - but in the end, it was the poor weather at flowering time that reduced volume expectations as it resulted in much coulure and millerandes. Volume expectations were further reduced by spells of hot (heatwave) weather, which shrunk the volume of juice in the berries. Like in the other regions of Burgundy, there was rain to contend with at harvest time, but as one grower explained to me, "Yes, but the rain was sufficiently late that the grapes didn't take up much of it - so it hardly budged the potential harvest volumes." Most of Nouveau comes from the southerly part of Beaujolais - in the Beaujolais and Beaujolais villages areas. More (Nouveau) wine is generally made here than in the crus - but volumes (and trying to compare them) are, of course, a moving target, varying from producer to producer. In 2024, France took 62% of the bottles, but the classic Nouveau markets of Japan, the US and the UK, together, still bought 3.2 million bottles (versus 4 million bottles in 2022) out of the total of 5.3 million that were exported. Oh, and 4% of that remains white or rosé today! And how is this Nouveau vintage? I'll make my comments on 2025 Nouveau, aided by some comparison to 2024: Historically - and I've been making this tasting since the 2017 vintage - I've seen much more consistent quality in smaller volume vintages than I have in 'normal' or 'generous' vintages. It seems that many domaines like to play with yield elasticity in the more generous vintages - when it's quite easy to find lighter, usually less interesting wines. The quality wasn't consistent in 2024, and was only rarely great. 2025 is another smaller-volume vintage, but this time the growers have delivered much better consistency - the best that I've seen since the 2022 vintage. The 2025 grapes had naturally higher ripeness than in 2024, enabled by earlier harvesting that allowed growers to delay harvesting, should they wish - many domaines recounting that they found it difficult to find the optimum harvest dates. This higher ripeness seems to have worked in our favour with more consistency, and it's clearly evident in even higher levels in this year's Beaujolais Villages. From the 116 wines from 2025 that I tasted, I found many more acceptably delicious, even excellent wines than was the case in 2024 - I even found some great ones! Very good to excellent wines mean that they are wines where I would be happy to drink at least a glass, or even multiple glasses. This year, it was obvious that there was more consistent quality to be found in the Beaujolais Villages than the Beaujolais, though, like every year, at the expense of drinkability. Let me explain: This year, Beaujolais Villages wines show more maturity and their finishing sweetness of fruit is next level - but also the level of tannin in many.... Most of them will start drinking well in the Springtime of 2026 - but on the 20th of November? Les Beaujolais Nouveaux day? - less so. Did I ever say that I struggle with the concept of Beaujolais Villages Nouveaux? At least in terms of drinking them on the third Thursday of November - of course I did :) Good hunting! All of the wines were tasted and selected blind. It was only after the tasting that I got a copy of the spreadsheet with the names to match to the numbered bottles: Great wines for their labels Antoine Viland Nouveau Julien Aucagne Villages Nouveau Jérôme Lacondemine, Cœur de Vigneron Villages Nouveau Excellent Wines - Beaujolais Nouveau Only one more excellent wine than in 2024 in this section - but fully 61% (36 of 59 samples) of the wines I rated as being of very acceptable quality - that's way higher than in 2024: Quentin et Gaëtan Morel, Boder’Wine Château de L’Eclair Louis Tête, Le Pot Les Vins J.M Aujoux, Le Bistrot d’Aujoux Les Vins J.M Aujoux, Le Cochon Chic P.Ferraud & Fils, Le Couple Georges Duboeuf Excellent Wines - Beaujolais Villages Nouveau Nineteen from 51 wines tasted in this section I thought excellent - 2 were great. That's in comparison to just 10 in 2024. Likewise, I classed a much higher percentage of 2025s as having very acceptable quality: 38 from 51 or 74% !! Famille Mélinon Domaine de Colette, Natur’elle Maison Piron Passot Rémy et Fils Maison Trénel Domaine de la Plaigne Domaine du Sallerin, En attendant le Printemps Aurélie Dunérin Domaine de Croifolie Cave du Château des Loges, Le Monde en Fête Richard Rottiers Château de Lavernette, Le Jeune Château de la Terrière Domaine de la Milleranche Château de Poncié Frédéric Perrier André Colonge & Fils, Gatsby Gamay The savoury/beer flavours and/or aromas – which I associate with lower sulfur wines that have been open a few hours – or wines in fridge that have been open more than 24 hours – were very common in the flavours of 2024s, but they are much rarer in 2025. I know that some people like beer. Click on 'Read More...' below to see the full notes for the 116 wines in the order that they were (blind) tasted on Wednesday 05th November 2025:   Read More