To this day, the young wine’s release offers an excuse to gather with friends to opine on the year’s harvest and savor its fruitiness.

(If you have some spare time, do read this essay by Patricia Wells on the Beaujolais savored in Parisian wine bars in 1982.)

The Times first mentioned wine from the Beaujolais region in 1873. In 1955, we recommended it as “a good picnic companion.”

“The wines are as light on the wallet as they are in the glass,” our critic, Howard Goldberg, wrote in 1987. “This frivolity makes them ideal quaffing wines for parties until New Year’s Eve, when Champagne takes over.

“Besides, they are so short-lived they should be pretty much finished by then.”

Patrick Boehler contributed reporting.

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