Gamay

 

Gamay is a blackish purple grape that is used to make a dark red wine of the same name. It is grown in France. It is considered to be one of the fanciest of wines and it is raised as a crop where the best vintages are grown in the Tours and the Louire Valley. The full name for Gamy is Gamay Noir a Jus Blanc. 

It is a very treasured old cultivar that has been around since the 1400s. It is known for its acidity and to get its special flavor without harshness the grape is planted in soils with high acidity. This makes it an excellent wine to be served on its own. It is used a varietal but it does not have to be blended with other vintages in order to be delicious.

Compared to most French wines which have strong bitter tastes, a glass of Gamay has a very pleasant tangy taste and it is known as being a drinking wine. It is also a pleasant color. Instead of being a bloody red it has a very unusual and pleasant blue purple tinge to it. It is a versatile wine and many rose wines and sparkling wines are also made from this type of grape. When mixed with other wines it often turns the color of the beverage an enchanting pink.

The Gamay wine was developed because it could be harvested two weeks earlier than the Pinot Noir varieties of grapes and this allowed the vineyards to be paid faster in the season. It was also a strongly flavored, sweeter wine than the Pinot and it grew in abundance. The fact that it began to become more popular than the Pinot was its undoing and at one point French royalty banned it because it was overtaking other types of wine.

The Gamay grape vine is also known for being a very vigorous vine that tends to create a very acidic yet sweet fruit. The wine is also noted for being very fruity with an almost tropical flair. Some Gamays even seem to taste a bit like bananas. This is not an aged wine and typically it tastes a bit of raisins, sour cherries, and black pepper.

Gamay is also a wine that is sometimes blended especially with a very alkaline wine known as Southern Bugolais that is grown in the alkaline limestone soils in the south of France.

The true French Gamay grape is not to be confused with the Napa Gamay which is grown in California. That wine is known as Valdeque. Rather than being a true Gamay grape, wines from California labeled as such are actually clones of Pinot Noir grapes. These Gamays are also sometimes called the Gamay Beaujolais even though they have nothing at all to do with the French Gamay vine.

The grape is also found in the Niagara region in Canada and a recognized and tasty permutation of the grape is grown there. It is called Gamay Droit. Gamay Droit is also successfully cultivated by wine producers in Australia.

Some kinds of Gamay are also grown in Oregon in a very specific area called the Willamette Valley Wine Region.