by Ned Goodwin
The seasonal barrage of Beaujolais Nouveau draws near. As more Nouveau is consumed in Japan than anywhere else in the world, its consumption serves as an insight into the health of the Japanese market at large.
The Japanese obsessesion with the ephemeral and seasonality helps to explain the taste for Beaujolais Nouveau rather than any pretense of the wine working with Japanese cuisine. However unlike cherry blossoms, residual stock of Nouveau is sighted from convenience outlets to department stores months after the hype of televised press conferences and celebrity fetes to annouce its release have faded.
Dead stock and an appreciating euro saw orders fall substantially to below one million cases in 2007. This year, according to major importers who have already placed orders, a 10% further decline is likely to around 700,000 cases. This is due partly to an encroaching recession, price hikes from virtually all producers but for Duboeuf, and lessons learned.
While Japan has not weaned itself off of Nouveau yet, and the plethora of promotions-from Beaujolais-filled hot springs to the 150th anniversary of Japanese-Franco relations-are still to be experienced, the category`s susceptibility to rabid price slashing has seen many importers introduce styles to stand out from the sea of wine. For example, ‘natural’ and organic styles such as Nouveau from artisanal producer, Marcelle Lapierre, have become popular.
While the average price of Nouveau is JPY 2,500-3,000 ($26+) and well above the national unit average of around JPY 800, wines such as Lapierre’s protect even higher margins while offering a certain cachet to the on-trade as a glass pour. Other means to profit in a sector obsessed with market share and the discounting needed to achieve this, is to ignore Nouveau altogether. The popular French bistro le Pre Verre adopts this tactic and sells Beaujolais-Villages and wines from the Crus all year.
Yet despite endeavours to introduce quality wines by some, the deregulation of wine sales in Japan in 2003 means that seas of poor Nouveau are flogged in convenience stores staffed by employees with little wine knowledge. Ill-equipped staff and inexpensive wine that "walks out the door" is an unfortunate albeit, symbiotic equation. Thus a slew of alternative formats of Nouveau are to be introduced this year. These include half-bottles, 500 ml. bottles and even, in the case of one convenience chain, 250ml mini bottles.
While convenience and smaller sizes are embraced in a land pressed for space, it would be heartening if such attention to marketing was paid to more venerable wines. Clearly the sudden cash influx, ease of ordering, and rapid turnover that Nouveau represents remains very attractive.
