Japanese bathe in 2014 Beaujolais wine

Wine lovers in Japan celebrated the release of 2014’s Beaujolais Nouveau, by bathing in the wine at a hot spring resort west of Tokyo.

Every year the Yunessan spa in Hakone fills one of its 13,000 litre baths with nine litres of Beaujolais Nouveau and invites oenophiles to bathe in the crimson pool over 10 days.

The French wine is traditionally released just after midnight on the third Thursday in November, weeks after the grapes have been harvested. Japan is the world’s second biggest export market for the young wine, second only to Germany.

Antioxidants in the wine, sourced from L’Aboure-Roi winery in Burgundy’s Nuit-Saint-Georges, supposedly help to give bathers a youthful complexion and beautiful skin. While it may be thought to have beautifying effects bathing in the wine won’t give you a buzz. The pool’s alcohol content is necessarily low so that children can take part in the fun.

This week UK merchant Bibendum Wine predicted a revival in Beaujolais demand among 25 to 34-year-olds after research showed that baby boomers are still drinking the Gamay-based wine.