Writing about wine can be just as seasonal as drinking it. As soon as the temperature creeps above 20C, we draft articles about “crisp, refreshing rosés”; when it’s cold, it’s all “warming, robust winter reds”; and on or around the third Thursday in November, we prepare pieces about beaujolais.
This, as I’m sure many of you will be well aware, is all down to beaujolais nouveau, the annual celebration of the first wines of the vintage that has given the region a reputation for conviviality and fun. So much so, in fact, that it has even reached deepest, darkest Swansea. If you haven’t yet seen the BBC Wales news piece about a group of women who spend hundreds of pounds on hair and makeup at 5am to celebrate Beaujolais Day, I implore you to do so right this second (I especially love that there isn’t a glass of red wine in sight). It is unapologetic high camp in its purest form.
