A ‘Quaffing’ Wine Arrives From France

The annual arrival of Beaujolais nouveau wines from France took place on schedule Thursday, the first day under French law that the year’s Beaujolais nouveau can legally be sold and consumed.

Wine usually goes through two stages of fermentation, but Beaujolais nouveau is removed after the first stage. As a result, said Jerry Atney, manager of the Los Feliz Wine Shop which handles several varieties of Beaujolais nouveau, “It’s a quaffing wine. It’s festive and light and fruity. But it’s not something you’d linger over. It doesn’t have the complexity of a finished Beaujolais.”