The first bonito of the season and Beaujolais Nouveau are both seasonal treats. Since there is no point unless one drinks it on the first day, I went out for drinks with friends from work. The place had no atmosphere whatsoever: Olive Tree on the first basement floor of the Nihon Building at the Nihonbashi exit of Tokyo Station. Its clear red, strawberry-juice-like color made it feel unmistakably nouveau.
The grape used for Beaujolais Nouveau is the Gamay variety, with “black skin and white juice,” and it is said to have lively, fresh red-fruit aromas such as strawberry and cherry.
Quoted below:
A special winemaking method that brings out the deliciousness of nouveau
After carefully cultivated grapes are harvested, they are put into fermentation vats as whole bunches, without being crushed. Before long, the juice from crushed grapes in the vat begins to ferment. The carbon dioxide generated by this fermentation eventually fills the vat. When grapes are immersed in this carbon dioxide, components of the skins gradually spread into the flesh, producing a variety of aromas that ordinary fermentation cannot obtain. Wine made by this inherited method retains the grapes’ own fresh fragrance and becomes captivating.
It is not only fragrant: it has no residual sugar, little volatile acid, and can be drunk early. It also produces almost no tannins from the skins and seeds, and has no astringency, making it a smooth wine.
Nouveau completes this fermentation process in 3 or 4 days.
Bottling begins 48 hours before shipment, during which various tests are performed: whether sugar and acidity meet the required conditions, whether fermentation has completely stopped and the wine is stable, and so on. Then it is tasted, and only wines that pass are permitted to be bottled and delivered to you.
(http://www.hapima.com/sh/mywine/2004au1118/)