It’s the third Thursday of November, the traditional release day for Beaujolais Nouveau. The wine is released only two months after it is bottled so it retains all of its freshness and all of its fruitiness. According to Reuters, the two largest producers of this trendy French wine chose greener shipping methods to get the wines to the United States in time for their release this year.

 

Georges Duboeuf is the largest producer of Beaujolais Nouveau. Usually 1/3 of the two million bottles sent to the United States by Duboeuf is shipped by boat. This year, the producer has sent 75 percent of the wines by sea and significantly reduced the carbon footprint of the wine’s travels.

 

The second largest producer of Beaujolais Nouveau is Boissett, and their entire harvest for 2009 is being bottled in plastic. You’ll remember that Boisset also puts out wines in the Eco Wine Trio that I reviewed a couple of weeks ago. Since the plastic bottles weigh much less than the glass bottles, less fuel was used to ship them to the United States by air.