France starts shipping beloved wine

PARIS, Nov. 18 (UPI) -- Beaujolais nouveau -- drunk the same year the grapes are harvested -- celebrated its 60th anniversary with some 50 million bottles shipped, officials said.

The release of the "primeur" wine on the third Thursday of November has become a major event in the wine calendar, featuring a race to bring the first bottle of the wine to Paris and to launch parties in Tokyo and New York, Radio France Internationale reported Thursday.

Japan is the biggest consumer of Beaujolais nouveau with seven million bottles last year, up 17.8 percent on the previous year, with the United States the second largest market followed by Germany.

China has become the latest country to discover the charms of the coveted wine, experts said, and some 40 percent of the wine's total production is destined for the export market.

Beaujolais nouveau was officially recognized in 1951 when a Beaujolais Nouveau Day was established, RFI reported.