Beaujolais nouveau

Restaurant in Shoreditch High Street

I was sitting on the number 26 bus today lost in a daydream when, as we stopped at the traffic lights just before the turn off to Hackney Road, I saw a sign for Beaujolais nouveau, November 21. You can just about see this announcement on the window of the restaurant above.

This took me back nearly 30 years to the days when the arrival of this young, and to my tastes frankly unpleasant red wine was anticipated with much excitement. It was during the heady days of Margaret Thatcher's premiership when the Young Conservatives had balls and the Hooray Henry's got very drunk and threw bread rolls at each other and their female counterparts were all called Caroline and they wore dresses that looked like meringues and the rest of us thought this was normal behaviour for Tories.

So Henry and Caroline would race each other to France and back to see who could get back first with a case of the stuff while the rest of us got on with earning a living. They would get two minutes attention on the evening news and then it would all be forgotten. I had assumed, with the passage of time, that Beajolais nouveau had been a passing fad and like a property boom the bubble had burst a long time ago. But it seems I am wrong and today is the day to celebrate this year's arrival.

À la vôtre.