And what it has to do with Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc
It’s had a quality-led renaissance in the last few decades, so to get you up to speed, here’s the lowdown on the rise of Beaujolais. More than just a good story, we think it has some relevance currently for our wine industry in New Zealand.
It’s most well known as the grape variety of Beaujolais, the French region just north of Lyon. Gamay’s origins however, are actually in Burgundy, where it was grown alongside Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. In the 14th century, some Duke (Philip the Bold, what a name) banished Gamay from the region, as he considered it to be inferior to local darling, Pinot Noir.
So it came to find a happy home just further south in Beaujolais, where it thrived in a warmer climate, on free draining granite, schist and volcanic soils, welcomed by a growing market in nearby Lyon. Gamay's ability to ripen reliably and produce generous crops made it an attractive choice for local growers. The free-draining, acidic soils tempered yields and made wines with greater concentration, perfume and freshness than was achieved on Burgundy's richer soils.
In the 1950s, producers in the region realised the commercial potential of marketing the first wine of the vintage, and so Beaujolais Nouveau emerged. The style, released just weeks after harvest, was all about fruitiness and immediacy over complexity. By the 1980s over half of the region's production was sent around the world to be celebrated and guzzled on the 3rd Thursday of November every year - Beaujolais Nouveau day. While fun, and commercially successful, the style led drinkers to assume that that was all Beaujolais had to offer.
By the 1990s, consumer enthusiasm for Beaujolais Nouveau began to wane. The emphasis on producing huge volumes of inexpensive, fruity wine led to concerns about quality, and many consumers came to associate all Beaujolais with simple Nouveau. It became a victim of its own success.
Ironically, this decline helped shine a spotlight on the region's more serious producers, who had a quiet revolution on the go. Growers Marcel Lapierre, Jean Foillard, Guy Breton and Jean-Paul Thévenet were farming organically, harvesting by hand, reducing yields and making wine with minimal intervention. They championed site specific wines, highlighting the intricacies of terroir in the same way as Burgundy. Now famously known as the "Gang of Four" these producers elevated what Gamay and Beaujolais could be. Complex, mineral, savoury and capable of ageing, the wines also still retain the joyful fruit and freshness that make Gamay so appealing. The gang of four upped the game, and set the benchmark for other producers in the region to follow.
Always on the hunt for the next exciting region, variety or wine style, these more serious expressions were embraced by sommeliers and wine buyers, especially as the prices of wines from neighbouring Burgundy continued to climb. That has since inspired producers in other regions around the world to plant the variety as a quality proposition for their customers. In Australia’s Yarra Valley, it’s been a go-to as parts of the region become too hot for Pinot Noir. In New Zealand we have roughly 100 hectares of Gamay planted, spread across most of our major regions. To keep that in context, we have about 5400 hectares of Pinot Noir planted. As small as our Gamay plantings may be, they have doubled in the last decade, and the wines being made are excellent. Stylistically, they follow Beaujolais’ lead, in a more serious style, rather than the lighter Nouveau style.
This revolution in Beaujolais is worth mulling over here in New Zealand. Not in regard to the Gamay we make, rather the Sauvignon Blanc. There are parallels between Beaujolais Nouveau and this country’s signature white wine, Marlborough Sauvignon. The straight up, fruitful forwardness of both wines is what drew the world’s attention. They’ve both been a phenomenon of sorts, where the Nouveau style became synonymous with Beaujolais, as Sauvignon Blanc has become with Marlborough. They’re both an appealing commercial proposition to producers, with the potential to crop at high levels, bottle young without the expense of aging in the winery, for release into the market within a few months of harvest.
It took decades to change the perception of Beaujolais as just one thing, simple, immediate Nouveau. Does Marlborough Sauvignon suffer from a similar perception? We so often hear from our customers that they “don’t drink Sav”, despite the varied styles we have on our shelves. Its market share has dropped here, with Pinot Gris and emerging varieties like Albariño taking a bigger slice of the pie. We also get the impression that Sauvignon listings for wine buyers in the trade are a box to tick, rather than a wine they’d be excited to drink themselves. Is Marlborough Sauvignon becoming a victim of its own success?
In 2025 the Sauvignon Blanc harvest was New Zealand’s largest ever, with 80% of that coming from Marlborough. While exports sales still grew slightly, supply outstripped demand after softer sales in 2023 and 2024. As a result, fruit has been left unharvested on the vines, and wineries have capped intake from contract growers. It’s worrying, and while it might represent short term structural issues in the industry, it does raise concerns long term.
Perhaps this is a pivotal moment. The turning point in Beaujolais came from consumer fatigue of the ‘same same’ Nouveau style, and the dedication of a small group of producers who changed perceptions completely. Their commitment to quality and expressing the intricacy of place enthused the wine trade, and in turn consumers. When it comes to Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, the small, dedicated producers with a similar focus are certainly there, producing interesting, organic, site specific wines. We’d say there’s some work to do to draw wine buyers and wine lovers attention to this.
