Beaujolais Nouveau. Its name literally means 'new Beaujolais.' This wine is named for the village of Beaujeu in France, which is a small region just south of Burgundy.

On the third Thursday of each November, which is November 18th this year, France releases Beaujolais Nouveau wine to the world.

The 'new' part of this wine is due to the fact that the grapes used to make this wine are picked from the vineyards just a couple of months prior to its release! That's compared to most wines that spend at least a year or more going through the fermentation and aging process before being bottled and shipped to market. But Beaujolais Nouveau gets from the vineyard to you in about two months!

Word has it that this wine was originally produced for the harvest workers in France to immediately thank them for all their hard work just after harvest was complete. But now its production is somewhere between 30-60 million bottles so that the entire world can enjoy.

Although there are more than 100 Beaujolais Nouveau festivals held each year in the Beaujolais region, the 'Les Sarmentelles' multi-day festival is said to be the biggest and most famous for celebrating the release of Beaujolais Nouveau. The festival includes music, dancing, fireworks and, yes, plenty of wine.

This wine is produced entirely from handpicked Gamay grapes and because it is so new, it is very fresh and fruity. Many describe Beaujolais Nouveau as having flavors of candied cherries, strawberries, red plum, bananas and bubble gum.

Beaujolais Nouveau is meant to be enjoyed young, not critiqued. So, pick up a bottle soon and give it a slight chill. Then raise a glass of Beaujolais Nouveau to the French harvest workers. It's Beaujolais Nouveau time! Cheers!

Having just completed a series on light, medium and full bodied white wines, it's now time to transition to exploring red wines.

But first, just a quick review of the term 'body' as it relates to wine. The four major components of a wine's body are formed by the alcohol level, the acidity, the tannin and the sweetness. While white wines have no tannin, red wines are going to have varying levels of tannin and this is really what sets them apart from white wines.

One might think that a rosé wine might be the perfect transition between white wine and red wines. After all, they are pink. And to some extent a rosé certainly does have a bit of both worlds. And that primarily comes from the fact that a rosé wine spends just a bit of time after it's pressed with the skins of the red grapes that they are produced from. That's what gives a rosé its pink color and just a very faint hint of tannin. But that's where the comparison ends. Rosé is going to have a lot more in common with white wine. It's going to have bright and crisp fruit flavors of strawberry and melon, mouth-watering acidity and be quite refreshing.

The best place to start exploring red wines is with those that are light bodied. But in the past, light bodied red wines were often ignored. And some still are. Take Gamay for example. This grape makes a light, refreshing wine best known from the Beaujolais region of France. Part of the reason that Gamay often gets ignored is the Beaujolais Nouveau that goes from vine to bottle in just a couple months. These wines are big in fruit and meant for celebrating the harvest, not for aging. This is not a wine for serious wine connoisseurs, collectors or critics. It's simply meant for celebration. So it is not taken too seriously by the wine elite.

But Gamay, of which more than 90% is grown in France, is also a serious grape for producing fine light red wine. These wines can have flavors of raspberry, red currant, cherry, strawberry and boysenberry. A Gamay wine is very low in tannin and is generally made relatively low in alcohol by volume (ABV). Hence, the light bodied classification. Serve Gamay with a slight chill and you'll find it to be a bright fruit flavored wine with great perfumed aromas.

Next time we'll continue exploring light bodied red wines by getting into the wildly popular Pinot Noir. Until then, cheers!