Gamay

This high-yielding grape is associated with Beaujolais Nouveau – but there’s a lot more to it, says Ben McCormack

THE GRAPE

The easy-to-grow, high-yielding and earlyripening gamay grape was once cultivated throughout Burgundy but is now synonymous with the region’s southernmost area of Beaujolais, between Mâcon and Lyon. Gamay’s reputation has suffered due to the annual release of Beaujolais Nouveau, hurried through after harvest for the third Thursday of November and best forgotten as quickly. True, straight Beaujolais is often nothing to write home about, but midrange Beaujolais Villages, blended from grapes from 38 designated villages and, especially, top-end Beaujolais made in the ten Cru villages, are distinctive, easy-drinking wines with juicy fruit, firm acidity and low tannins. Gamay is also grown successfully albeit less famously in the Loire region and in Switzerland.

THE TASTE

Beaujolais and Beaujolais Villages are made in steel tanks with carbonic maceration (fermentation inside the skins of uncrushed grapes), which adds banana and pear drops to the classic fresh flavours of raspberry and red cherry; these wines benefit from chilling. Most Cru Beaujolais is fermented with crushed fruit in the same way as other still wines and will usually have the name of the village rather than Beaujolais on the label. Brouilly, Fleurie, Morgon and Moulin à Vent are the Cru villages that produce the most wine; Brouilly and Fleurie are lighter and more perfumed than the fullerbodied,
more deeply flavoured wines of Morgon and Moulin à Vent, which can age for 10 years or more – chill these with care.

THE PAIRINGS
There is a local joke that three rivers flow through Lyon: the Rhône, Saône – and Beaujolais, consumed in vast quantities by the inhabitants of France’s gourmet capital. Match the wine to the charcuterie and pâté en croûte for which the city is famous, and don’t forget that chilled light reds are an excellent pairing for white fish such as turbot, sole and halibut. Early autumn game (grouse, partridge, pheasant) are another top match, while come December it’s worth remembering the vibrant red fruit of Cru Beaujolais goes as well with roast Christmas turkey as cranberry sauce – and for half the price of flashy Burgundy.

THE VINES
The best Beaujolais comes from the rolling hills in the northern part of the area, where low levels of nutrients in the granite soils lead to low yields of grapes and concentrate gamay’s flavour. Vineyards of individual, free-standing vines are pruned to spurs around the head, a method called ‘gobelet’. More than half of the gamay harvest, including the first wine of the new vintage that ends up as Beaujolais Nouveau, is grown in sandy soils in the south of Beaujolais, on the plains to the west of the River Saône.