Photo/Illutration Wine lovers celebrate this year’s Beaujolais Nouveau with its producer, right, in Tokyo just after its release at midnight on Nov. 16. (Wataru Sekita)

The latest batch of the popular French red wine Beaujolais Nouveau is hitting store shelves in Japan, but it may leave wine connoisseurs with sticker shock.

This year’s version became available for sale at midnight on Nov. 16, and some companies have doubled the price from last year due to the soaring costs of air shipments and other inflationary pressures.

Logistics costs increased as the Russian invasion of Ukraine has prevented airplanes from flying over Russia, leading to longer air freight times.

The purchase price of Beaujolais Nouveau was also pushed up by soaring prices of glass and aluminum, which are used for bottles and caps, combined with the weaker yen.

This year, Suntory Holdings Ltd., an importer of Beaujolais Nouveau, recommended much higher than normal retail prices for its typical Beaujolais Nouveau products at supermarkets.

A 750-milliliter bottle is recommended to be sold for 3,850 yen ($27), which is 1.4 times the price from last year, and a 375-ml bottle should go for 3,080 yen, 2.2 times higher, tax included.

Despite that, lovers of the wine toasted their glasses in many places in Japan to celebrate its arrival.

Suntory held an in-person event at NOS Bar & Dining Ebisu in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward to coincide with the wine’s release date.

It was the first face-to-face Beaujolais Nouveau event in three years, as the COVID-19 pandemic forced the company to hold it online for the past two years.

Guests counted down to midnight and raised their glasses.

Farmers who grow grapes for Beaujolais Nouveau could harvest grapes with more sugar content and flavor this year because they had many sunny days this summer, Suntory officials said.

They said that made this year’s Beaujolais Nouveau taste like “the sun’s blessing.”

But the price has even risen at the Tokyo event. A glass of Beaujolais Nouveau there went for 800 yen, up 100 yen from last year.

Companies are making their own efforts to counter the price hikes.

Mercian Corp. will sell all its Beaujolais Nouveau products in plastic bottles this year.

It used glass bottles last year but switched to plastic bottles, which are lighter and cost less to ship.

Sapporo Breweries Ltd. decided to transport some of its Beaujolais Nouveau products by sea rather than air, and will hold off on selling them until January next year.

But demand for the import has already shrunk.

Mercian estimates that fewer orders for Beaujolais Nouveau will be made from Japan this year due to the price rises. The country will only import around half of last year’s volume this year.

That follows a long-term trend.

Japan imported 2,690 kiloliters of Beaujolais Nouveau in 2021. That was 6 percent less than the previous year and only about 30 percent of the volume from its peak in 2004.

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