In 2025, according to French customs, 180,000 litres of red and rosé Beaujolais entered the Netherlands directly from France. In 2000 the figure stood at 4.62 million litres.
These figures cover direct exports registered by France rather than total Dutch consumption. A bottle arriving via Belgium, for instance, falls outside them. Even so, the change is impossible to miss: in 25 years, direct Beaujolais exports to the Netherlands fell by 96 percent.
The obvious culprit is Beaujolais Nouveau. The November ritual that once filled Dutch supermarket shelves largely disappeared, and with it much of the region’s visibility. But the figures point to a broader problem.
Those 180,000 litres in 2025 amount to roughly 240,000 bottles, with a customs value of €1.26 million: €6.98 per litre, or €5.24 per 0.75-litre bottle before transport, excise duty, VAT and margins. The long-term graph runs steeply downward: from 46,200 hectolitres in 2000 via 22,100 in 2005 and 6,100 in 2015 to 1,800 in 2025. A few temporary upticks did little to change the direction. Beaujolais now represents only a tiny share of French wine exported directly to the Netherlands.
A decline five times steeper than total French wine exports
The Netherlands is an extreme case, but Beaujolais is shrinking almost everywhere.
Worldwide exports of red and rosé Beaujolais fell from 672,100 to 127,400 hectolitres between 2000 and 2025, a decline of 81 percent. Total French wine exports contracted by 17 percent over the same period. Beaujolais therefore lost almost five times as much volume as the French average, while its share of French wine exports fell from 4.4 to around 1 percent.
Within that global decline, the Dutch market performed worse still. The Netherlands accounted for 6.9 percent of worldwide Beaujolais exports in 2000 and only 1.4 percent in 2025.
That matters because the wider French wine trade managed for years to compensate for declining volume through higher prices. As I showed in France’s wine miracle was an accounting illusion, premiumisation kept export value remarkably resilient for much of the past quarter-century.
Beaujolais benefited from that effect too, but not enough to offset the collapse in volume.
The Nouveau test
Beaujolais Nouveau remains the obvious suspect, particularly in the Netherlands. For many consumers, it was the public face of the region: inexpensive, highly visible and tied to one of the few annual wine rituals that reached far beyond specialist circles.
The figures from Inter Beaujolais, the regional trade organisation for wine producers and merchants, suggest that Nouveau did not shrink faster than the rest of the region.
The organisation’s annual press releases report Nouveau exports of 74,000 hectolitres in 2019, 65,000 in 2021 and 48,500 in 2022. Measured against total Beaujolais exports, Nouveau represented roughly 30 percent at each available reference point: 33.9 percent in 2019, 30.3 percent in 2021 and 28.8 percent in 2022.
For 2002, the interprofession reported 25.5 million export bottles of Nouveau, equivalent to roughly 191,000 hectolitres. That was 31 percent of total Beaujolais exports.
The share was therefore remarkably stable. At the available reference points, roughly three in every ten litres of exported Beaujolais were Nouveau and seven were something else: standard Beaujolais, Beaujolais-Villages or one of the ten Crus.
Worked through over the 2002–2022 period, roughly one third of the total export loss belongs to Nouveau and around two thirds to the rest. Both categories lost substantial volume while the balance between them remained broadly unchanged.
Nouveau was part of the decline, but it was not the whole decline.
That makes the familiar explanation less comfortable. The disappearance of the November hype clearly hurt visibility, but it does not explain why the rest of Beaujolais fell with it. The qualitative rehabilitation of the Crus, from Fleurie to Morgon, has not yet produced a recovery visible in the export statistics.
French sales are falling too
The decline is not purely an export phenomenon.
FranceAgriMer publishes annual retail data for still wine in French hypermarkets and supermarkets. In those channels, Beaujolais sales fell from 126,000 hectolitres in 2011 to 90,000 hectolitres in 2024, a decline of 29 percent.
That is substantial, but exports fell much faster. Over exactly the same period, export volume dropped from 313,700 to 135,400 hectolitres, or 57 percent. Exports therefore shrank roughly twice as fast as French supermarket sales.
The comparison is not complete. Restaurants, independent wine shops and cellar-door sales fall outside those retail figures. Even so, the difference suggests that Beaujolais has a larger positioning problem abroad than it does at home.
The price starts to weaken
For years, price provided some protection against falling volume.
The average customs value of exported Beaujolais rose from €3.16 per litre in 2002 to a peak of €7.16 in 2023. Selling less wine at a higher average value softened the loss and gave the region at least some of the benefits of premiumisation.
Since 2023, that trend has weakened. Average customs value slipped to €7.12 per litre in 2024 and €6.98 in 2025. The first five months of 2026 added another warning signal: export volume fell 4.7 percent, while value dropped 13.4 percent. Average customs value therefore came in 9.2 percent lower, at €6.76 per litre.
Those interim figures need caution because more than a third of the annual export volume ships in October and November with the Nouveau consignments, while changes in product mix can distort the average value per litre.
Still, the longer-term picture is difficult to ignore. Total Beaujolais export revenue fell from €193.6 million in 2002 to €88.9 million in 2025, well over a halving in nominal euros. Adjusted for more than twenty years of inflation, the real loss is much larger.
Higher prices softened the decline. They did not reverse it.
White becomes part of the answer
Inter Beaujolais has meanwhile made white wine a strategic priority.
Beaujolais Blanc, made from Chardonnay, currently represents only a small part of production. The region wants to increase that volume substantially over the coming years.
Commercially, the timing is understandable. French wine exports to the Netherlands have shifted steadily towards white, and in 2024 France shipped more white wine to the Dutch market than red and rosé combined.
That does not mean Chardonnay can simply replace the Gamay volume Beaujolais has lost. It does show that the region is beginning to adapt part of its production to a market in which lighter and fresher styles have gained ground.
What that shift means in the vineyard — including the expansion of Chardonnay, changing viticultural choices and a younger generation of growers — deserves a separate article.
What the numbers cannot tell us
There are several limits to this analysis.
French customs data measure direct exports. Wine arriving in the Netherlands through Belgium or another EU country is recorded elsewhere, while re-exports through the Netherlands can distort the figures in the opposite direction. The customs category also changed slightly in definition around 2010.
The public Agreste series does not distinguish Beaujolais Nouveau separately, so the Nouveau comparison relies on figures published by Inter Beaujolais.
More importantly, export data show what happened, not why consumers made their choices.
Was Nouveau simply a shrinking product within a shrinking category? Did its old image of thin, hastily made primeur wine damage the Beaujolais name more broadly? Did changing drinking habits hit Gamay harder than other styles? Or did the region lose its place in the market once supermarkets stopped treating the third Thursday of November as an event?
The figures cannot answer all of that.
What they do show is that Beaujolais Nouveau cannot carry the blame on its own. Nouveau declined, but so did the rest of Beaujolais. The problem is therefore larger than the disappearance of a November ritual.
The figures point to a broader failure than the collapse of Nouveau. Beaujolais lost its mass-market visibility just as consumer preferences were moving towards lighter styles and white wine, while the qualitative rise of the Crus remained largely confined to specialist circles. Better wine did not translate into renewed market presence.
The problem, then, is not simply that Beaujolais disappeared from the shelf. It is that the region failed to replace the role Nouveau once played in making Beaujolais visible to ordinary drinkers.
Frequently asked questions
How much Beaujolais does the Netherlands import?
In 2025, French customs registered 180,000 litres of red and rosé Beaujolais shipped directly to the Netherlands, roughly 240,000 bottles. This is not a pure consumption figure because supply via other EU countries is excluded and part of the registered volume may subsequently be re-exported.
Is Beaujolais Nouveau behind the decline?
Only partly. At the available reference points, Nouveau accounted for around 30 percent of Beaujolais exports, and that share remained broadly stable. Roughly two thirds of the export loss between 2002 and 2022 therefore came from other Beaujolais wines.
Do the French still drink Beaujolais?
Less than before. French supermarket sales fell by 29 percent between 2011 and 2024, while exports fell by 57 percent over the same period.
Is Beaujolais getting more expensive?
Average export customs value rose from €3.16 per litre in 2002 to a peak of €7.16 in 2023, but then weakened. In the first five months of 2026 it stood at €6.76 per litre.
Will there be more white Beaujolais?
That is the regional ambition. Inter Beaujolais wants to increase production of Beaujolais Blanc substantially over the coming years, partly by giving Chardonnay a larger role.
Sources: Agreste / Direction générale des douanes et droits indirects (DGDDI), dataset D_0015, ‘Echanges extérieurs de vins de la France’, updated 17 July 2026; Inter Beaujolais, dossiers de presse Beaujolais Nouveaux 2020, 2022 and 2023; FranceAgriMer / Symphony IRI, ‘Bilan 2011 des ventes de vins tranquilles en grande distribution’; FranceAgriMer / Circana, ‘Ventes et achats de vins tranquilles, bilan 2024’. Analysis: Winecastr.com.
This article is based on material first published as part of a longer analysis on Substack on 19 August 2026. It has been restructured and edited for The Wine Shift. The version on The Wine Shift is the maintained version.