US Edition 
Beaujolais Nouveau day: 10 facts about the wine
Today marks the world's best known wine party - the uncorking of Beaujolais Nouveau. Here are 10 facts about the wine
1. Beaujolais Nouveau is a fruity, very young red wine that is released for sale every year on the third Thursday of November, on the stroke of midnight. The uncorking of the bottles in France is marked by parties, fireworks and other festivities.
2. Initially the day for the bottles to be launched was November 15, but that was changed in 1985. According to Wine Weekly, the Thursday release was intended "to bring about a more festive celebration", as people would celebrate into the weekend.
3. The wine belongs to a category of wines called vins primeurs, meaning any wine sold in the same year it is harvested, not long after completing fermentation.
4. According to The Oxford Wine Encyclopedia, the tradition of drinking wine so young dates from the 19th century, when “the year’s wine would complete its fermentation in cask while en route to nearby Lyons, where the new wine provided a direct link with village life in the Beaujolais hills”.
5. In the 1960s and 70s, the wine began to become popular outside of France, with canny marketing gurus turning the race to export the newly bottled wine into an event itself (Le Figaro, the French newspaper, has called the rush ”the greatest marketing stroke since the end of World War Two".) Means of transport have allegedly included elephant, Concorde, and a hot-air balloon.
6.The wine is made from handpicked Gamay grapes, from the Beaujolais region.
7.The wine’s easy drinkability is due to a process called carbonic maceration, or whole berry fermentation, which allows the juice to be extracted from the grapes with a minimum of tannins.
8. There are over 100 Beaujolais Nouveau-related festivals held in the Beaujolais region. The most famous festival, Les Sarmentelles, is held in Beaujeu, the capital of the region, and lasts for days. The winner of the annual tasting contest wins their weight in wine.
9. Over half of the wine is consumed in France, but other big markets include Japan, Germany and the US.
10. Many say that the wine has had its heyday, with sales dropping every year. Sales in Britain fell from 742,000 bottles in 1999 to just 107,000 by 2011.