NSLC bids adieu to 'niche' Beaujolais Nouveau wine
Crown corporation says sales have dropped by 30% since 2021
The Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation is dropping Beaujolais Nouveau, the fruity red wine it has released with fanfare every fall for more than two decades.
The provincial crown corporation said sales have dropped by 30 per cent since 2021.
"This is a business decision by the NSLC," said spokesperson Terah McKinnon.
"Over the last few years, we've seen fewer and fewer of our customers looking for this niche wine," she told CBC News.
Beaujolais Nouveau sales were $79,478 for the year ending March 2021. They fell to $71,478 in 2022 and $55,518 in 2023.
That represents a tiny fraction of the corporation's wine sales, which totalled $164 million last year.
The red wine from the Beaujolais region of France is bottled right after harvest and is usually released in mid-November at NSLC stores.
The decision does not surprise Mark Dewolf, a sommelier and food and drinks editor at Saltwire.
"The fact is that tastes change and we're seeing younger consumers move away from the Beaujolais Nouveau and the people that have historically drunk it are just simply getting older and there's less of them," DeWolf said. "So I think from a business sense, it just makes sense to gradually move away."
He said producers from the Beaujolais region are also shifting away from lower quality Nouveau to premium red wines that command a higher price.
The NSLC said a private wine store, Harvest Wines, owned by entrepreneur Mickey MacDonald, expressed an interest and will carry the product.
Bishop's Cellar, another private wine store in Halifax, was offered Beaujolais Nouveau but chose not to carry it, instead bringing in other red wine from the region, said president Matt Rogers.
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