Night of the new red

At one minute past midnight tonight, from little villages and towns across France, over a million cases of Beaujolais Nouveau will begin a traditional journey to Paris for immediate shipment to all parts of the world.

Banners will proclaim the good news: Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé! One of the most frivolous and animated rituals in the wine world will have begun.

By the time it is over, more than 65 million bottles, nearly half of the region's total annual production, will have been distributed and drunk around the world. It has become a worldwide race to be the first to serve this new wine of the harvest.

But wherever the new Beaujolais goes, importers have agreed not to sell it before midnight on the third Thursday of November.

Georges Dubœuf, a tireless promoter of Beaujolais and Beaujolais Nouveau, has been dubbed The King Of Beaujolais. More than a fifth of his annual production, about four million bottles, is Beaujolais Nouveau.

Wands Limited, a subsidiary of The Farsons Group of Companies, is the sole agent and representative of Georges Dubœuf wines in Malta.