The Gamay Has Arrived

On November 16, 2017, Stephen Janes, estate manager of Pence Vineyards west of Buellton in the Sta. Rita Hills, delivered a new wine to his restaurant and retail accounts in Los Angeles. It was the third Thursday of November and he was hand-delivering the premiere vintage of Pence Gamay Nouveau.

It has been some time since the proclamation “Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé!” inspired boozy choruses among winebar patrons, at least outside of France. But there was a heady stretch in the 1970s and ’80s when a dozen or more wineries in Beaujolais, in the southern reach of Burgundy, would start their engines at 12:01am on the third Thursday of November to get their Beaujolais Nouveau to highways and airports so wine drinkers around the world could enjoy it on that same day.

There are stories of the wines parachuted off cargo planes into London and shot over the Atlantic on the supersonic Concorde into Manhattan, nose-diving into JFK just gently enough to keep the hastily made, still slightly fizzy Nouveau from popping its cork. It arrived just in time for Thanksgiving, and inevitably the cheap but gulpable wines made their way to Thanksgiving dinner tables across the land.

Now Beaujolais Nouveau Day has lost most of its buzz, and those who still buy a bottle on the third Thursday do so more as a dutiful, rather mirthless ritual, like eating fruitcake at Christmas or going to work in the morning. The wine is intended to celebrate the harvest just a few weeks past, as a precursor to the greatness that is coming, but it is often rushed to the marketplace, with the grapes sometimes picked too early in order to get the wine out the door on the right day. The large-scale commercial version is grapey and light and smells just a bit of chewing gum and banana Laffy Taffy, which makes it amusing if not terribly serious.

But there has been a resurgence in popularity in recent years for Beaujolais and the grape it is made from, called Gamay Noir. Long forgotten is the 1395 decree of Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, who called Gamay “very bad and disloyal” and banished Gamay vines from Burgundy. Now the hipster somms in New York and San Francisco are spinning vinyl and quaffing cru Beaujolais, a more serious version of Gamay made from 10 villages in the northern part of the region, where the soils are rocky granite and the best versions of Beaujolais can taste like well-made Pinot Noir.

Meanwhile, here in Santa Barbara County, there is a growing wave of enthusiasm among small producers for Gamay, both because of the intrigue of the varietal itself and its relative affordability compared to its sister grape, Pinot Noir. Wines made from Gamay feature qualities familiar to Pinot drinkers: zippy acidity and gentle tannins with red fruit and earth. It is often even lighter than Pinot and bears a magnificent magenta color in the glass. That color is why Pence decided to bottle their Gamay Nouveau in clear glass.

The Nouveau version of Gamay is made quickly, bottled in just a matter of weeks, and if made with quality fruit is deliciously fresh and vibrant. Stephen Janes admits that Pence had no intention of making a Nouveau in 2017. “I walked into the winery one morning, and Sashi [Moorman] and John [Faulkner] and Raj [Parr] are tasting the wines around the fermenter, and they had the biggest grins on their faces, and they said ‘Do you want to try your new Nouveau?’ I was taken completely off guard. But the wine was just electric.”

Jessica Gasca, owner and winemaker of Story of Soil in Los Olivos, makes 125 cases of Gamay sourced from Martian Ranch in Los Alamos, which was first released in March 2018 and was sold out by summer. It is not a Nouveau but spends just six months in large-format barrels before release.

She explains her draw to Gamay: “With any of the varietals that I search out, there has to be something that sparks an interest for me. Gamay is one of the grapes that is wildly interesting to me. There is a youthfulness, a playfulness to it. It has an energy.” Of the local Gamays I tried, the Story of Soil release had the most exotic aromatics, a combination of flowery and foraging notes that shifted into tangy red fruit on the palate and a peppery linger.

In my conversations with Gamay winemakers, I get the sense that Gamay is a winemaker’s wine, something that first holds mystery and intrigue for them, which is now starting to spill over to their guests and wine club members. Gasca is fascinated by what she experiences as inherent contradictions in Gamay. “The nose doesn’t match the palate. The aromatics are extreme and wild and funky, and it’s hard for me to understand what’s going on. That interests me because I want to try and figure it out.”

Janes imagines a parallel experience for the Pence winemakers. “Imagine you have been making Pinot Noir for 20 years. I’m sure there are variations vintage to vintage, but it’s still the same wines year after year. But now here’s Gamay, an interesting varietal that you get to experiment with. It’s new and exciting for them.”

Pence has the most extensive Gamay program in the region. In addition to the Nouveau, they make a longer-aged Gamay and also what they call “PTG,” short for Passe-tout-grains,

roughly translated as “throw it all in.” PTG is a blend of their estate Gamay and Pinot Noir, which has the crunchy acidity of Gamay upon release and takes on the silky textures and spice of Pinot as it ages. They will also be releasing a sparkling Gamay in 2019, after over three years of traditional-method production in barrel and bottle.

Gamay isn’t only capturing the attention of Pinot Noir winemakers. Syrah powerhouse Stolpman Vineyards planted a half-acre of Gamay on their Ballard Canyon estate in 2016, with plans for two and a half more in 2019. They are releasing their first Gamay this April, the label adorned with the letters “G D G,” scratched out in vineyard manager Ruben Solorzano’s handwriting.

Managing partner Pete Stolpman laughs when he tells the story behind the label. “We had planted small amounts of esoteric varietals —like Trousseau, for our Combe label partnership with Raj Parr—but my dad [Founding Partner Tom Stolpman] had been pushing us to plant Nebbiolo vines. He went out to see the new vineyard plantings, and he yells, “Did you plant god damm Gamay?!” And GDG was born. But we did surprise him that year with 500 Nebbiolo vines for his birthday. So everyone was happy. And he actually loves the Gamay.”The GDG Gamay I tasted was generous and supple, fitting of the warmer climate of Ballard Canyon. It is part of Stolpman’s So Fresh line, which includes three red wines that are made through a unique process called carbonic maceration. Carbonic maceration is a regular practice in Beaujolais and accounts for the pop of tart red fruit that sets Gamay apart.

All the local Gamay winemakers I interviewed utilize some form of carbonic maceration. Instead of traditional fermentation, where the berries are destemmed and the fermentation is catalyzed by yeast, carbonic maceration involves closing whole clusters into a sealed vessel, where the initial fermentation of a week or so occurs in a carbon-dioxide-rich environment, and most of the berries ferment on the inside while remaining intact. This process draws out the fruitiness and freshness of the wine without extracting tannin.

Mike Roth, owner and winemaker of LoFi wines, says that the carbonic process increases the drinkability and energy of his Gamay, grown in front of his house in Los Alamos, and allows for early release with minimal sulfur. When asked why he likes Gamay, he said “It’s delicious and accessible. There is nothing pretentious about it. The last thing we need is more pretentiousness in the wine business.” In 2018, his 225 cases of Gamay sold out in six months, and the new vintage is set to be released in April.

Justin Willet of Tyler Winery in Lompoc also makes a Gamay under his Lieu-Dit label, wines inspired by the Loire Valley, the only other region in France where other substantial plantings of Gamay are found. Drake Whitcraft makes a Whitcraft Gamay sourced from Pence vines that has been known to sell out before release, the Instagram version of en primeur.

At last count there are over 5,500 acres of Pinot Noir in Santa Barbara County; there are 12 acres of Gamay. Gamay at this point may be a cult wine, but I saw a glint in the eyes of the winemakers playing with it that makes me believe Gamay is at the frontier of new undertakings on our diverse hillsides.

Jessica Gasca’s comments seem to describe both herself and a thirsty set of new wine adventurers: “People are tired of drinking the same things. There is only so much Pinot and Cab and Chardonnay that someone can drink. I feel like the true wine geeks of the world are discoverers. People that really geek out on wine want to discover something, and when you drink the same varietals over and over, how much more can you discover?”

by Adam McHugh

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ERIN FEINBLATT