Berets and Beaujolais abound as taste of France brought to English Market

THERE will be a certain je ne sais quoi about Cork’s famous English Market tomorrow as it celebrates the arrival of one of the world’s most anticipated wines.

Berets and baguettes will be the order of the day as the market’s wine merchants, Bubble Brothers, throw a two-day party to mark the delivery of the first bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau 2011.

It is the world’s most famous ‘vin de primeur’, or early wine.

It is made from 100% Gamay grapes which have thinner skins than most grapes, causing a lower tannin level.

By law, Beaujolais grapes must be grown on individual, free standing vines and must be harvested by hand.

The juice is fermented for just a few short weeks before being bottled and released — in line with French law — at midnight on the third Thursday of November, which is tonight.

Bubble Brothers’s managing director Billy Forrester said his company wanted to throw a party to celebrate.

“We have bought about 50 cases of the 2011 vintage and our staff will be donning berets and French-style aprons and pouring the just-landed wine to patrons of the market tomorrow and Saturday,” he said.

Several of the market’s food traders will be handing out Beaujolais samples and offering specially-designed tasting plates to match the wine.

According to French wine-making legend, Georges Duboeuf, the 2011 Beaujolais Nouveau is a pink-purple, soft, fruity wine with very low tannins and exuberant flavours of strawberry, raspberry, banana and pear drops.

Mr Forrester said it is meant to be drunk young and matches well with hams, picnic food and turkey.

“And unusually for a red wine, it is best served slightly chilled,” he said.

The recommended retail price is €9.99 per bottle.

A French delivery van, that would have weaved the streets of Paris in the 1940s supplying bars and restaurants with wine and champagne, and which has been adapted to feature a bar, will also be parked on the streets of Cork this weekend, to promote the wine.