Clive Hartley
If there is one French grape variety that can produce dreadful wine as well as delightful and elegant ones then it is gamay.
Planted extensively in Beaujolais, which produces roughly half of the worlds gamay grapes, the region was infamous for releasing Beaujolais Nouveau every November, a wine made quickly after harvest that, at its best, was fruity and at its worst, watery and insipid.
However, this thin skinned, but aromatic red can be delightful when made in the northern part of the region in one of the 10 Cru villages. Take the village of Fleurie for example, and a wine made by winemaker Jane Eyre. I was fortunate to taste her 2021 vintage recently. The wine is rich, supple and round with darker berry fruits and gentle tannins. What’s incredible about this wine, is that it is made by an Australian who grew up in Gippsland and worked as a hairdresser for 10 years before pursuing her dream of becoming a winemaker and settling in France. In 2020 she was named négociant of the year by the French magazine La Revue du vin de France – not only the first Australian to be recognised but also the first woman.
You can find plenty of good Beaujolais Cru wines for sale in Australia, or why not try a home grown one? Gamay is becoming more recognised in Australia and is bucking the trend by increasing its plantings whilst other black grapes are being pulled out or mothballed. Macedon Ranges outfit, Lyons Will Estate, first planted gamay in 2013. Owners Ollie Rapson and Renata Morello think it has a bright future and are trialling seven new clones to see which ones are worth pursuing.
Good gamay can be aromatic and fruit driven or, given oak treatment, they become pinot noir in style and elegance. Both expressions are well worth exploring. Lyons Will Gamay goes through a semi-carbonic maceration and is kept on skins for a further one month, then matured in old French oak barrels. Carbonic maceration involves whole bunches of grapes being placed in a sealed vat and the weight from the top grapes crushes the ones at the bottom which start to ferment. This triggers an intracellular fermentation in the unbroken grapes and the result is a softer wine with cherry, kirsch and confectionary aromas. This produces a savoury, cherry, cinnamon spice driven medium bodied wine with soft tannins and a good long finish, if the 2021 and 2022 vintages are anything to go by. Both are now sold out at cellar door, but they currently have the 2023 on offer.
Clive Hartley
Clive Hartley is an award-winning wine writer, educator and consultant. Check out his fortnightly radio show on Hepburn Community Radio called “put a cork in it”. Want to learn more about wine? Try his book the Australian Wine Guide (7th ed) – available for purchase from Paradise Books in Daylesford or through his website – www.australianwineguide.com.au
