Beaujolais is a wine that divides drinkers. Whether you love or hate it, there’s definitely a world of difference between the well known Beaujolais Nouveau and the wines from the 10 Beaujolais Crus.

The Cru wines are distinctive, weighty reds, taken seriously by wine lovers. Whereas, Beaujolais Nouveau takes a serious beating for its super light, barely red, drink-me-quickly style.

For nearly 60 years Beaujolais Nouveau has been rushed onto the market every November, air freighted from France to wine drinkers around the world who allegedly can’t wait to get their lips around the wine.

In the process, Nouveau has been made extremely quickly after harvest and consequently accused of being too thin, too flavourless and lacking in substance. When compared with the wines from the Beaujolais Crus, the criticism of Beaujolais Nouveau certainly has validity.

Critics of the extremely light Beaujolais Nouveau reds include wine writers as well as wine makers, whose main gripe is that Nouveau gives the gamay grape a bad name.

(Gamay is the grape that Beaujolais is made from.)

Critics accuse Beaujolais Nouveau makers of clocking up an unnecessary carbon footprint by air freighting their wines around the world in time for Beaujolais Day (the third Thursday in November).

Since most other wines are shipped around the planet, this is a hypocritical accusation. But for now the tradition of Beaujolais Day continues.

However, if Nouveau is too light, there are alternatives. Very light pinot noirs are the most obvious, but the makers of a new mystery red launched in New Zealand this month have another substitute: the 2008 Pohangina Valley Estate Totara Reserve, from a vineyard located on the west coast of the North Island.

The vineyard is owned by Bronwyn and Nick Dymock and Fiona McMorran, who grow pinot gris, pinot noir, chardonnay and the mystery red, which they think might be made from the gamay grape.

Launched for the first time in New Zealand only this month, just 1000 bottles of Totara Reserve were made and $1 from each goes towards the Totara Reserve Regional Park’s native tree planting project.

The wine has a Beaujolais-like taste. Light, full of raspberry-like fruit flavours, with a soft style. It is undeniably similar to Beaujolais Nouveau in style.

The Dymocks and McMorran have had their mysterious red grape DNA-tested at the University of California, Davis, where it is now listed as an unknown variety called Pohangina Red.

The biggest selling Beaujolais in New Zealand is Georges Dubeouf, which can be found at Glengarry stores (Auckland and Wellington), at Hillsdene Wines (Tauranga), Gold Diggers (Thames) and Ballantynes (Christchurch).