Not even the pandemic stops the Japanese who, again this year, like every year, bathe in the Beaujolais New 2020, the French new wine that is uncorked every November 20th (and in Japan it already is).
Here the official release of wine is celebrated not only by draining liters of it, but even by taking a bath in a tub full of wine.
The “Beaujolais phenomenon” is linked to traditional French village festivals and was born in the 1950s, when the French administration agreed to place a wine on the market before the official date (December 15) and to be sold one minute after midnight on the third Thursday of November.
The harvest for Beaujolais Nouveau is done exclusively by hand in the Rhône and Saône-et-Loire regions (called Beaujolais, in fact), north of Lyon.
In the 1970s, Beaujolais moved from the tables to the street and parties began to be organized all over France. In the mid-1980s this event was also discovered abroad and still, from the United States to Australia to Japan, bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau are uncorked in the street with great parties.
This year, however, with the pandemic and physical distancing, the holidays will not be many. But in Japan they didn’t give up and celebrated it as if nothing had happened.
In the city of Hakone, a few years ago the Hakone Kowakien Yunessun Spa opened where you can literally bathe in wine.
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