Gamay

For the municipality in the Philippines, see Gamay, Northern Samar.

Gamay is a purple-colored grape variety used to make red wines, most notably grown in Beaujolais. Its full name is Gamay Noir à Jus Blanc, and it probably originated as a mutation of Pinot Noir. It is a very old cultivar, being mentioned already in the 1400s. It has been cultivated because it makes for abundant production rather than due to the quality of the wine made from it.

Confusingly the Gamay name has become attached to other varieties grown in California, which at one time were thought to be the true Gamay. The grape 'Napa Gamay' is now known to be Valdeguié, and the name Napa Gamay will no longer appear on labels after 2007. Gamay Beaujolais is considered to be an early ripening Californian clone of Pinot Noir.

Beaujolais wines (made entirely from the Gamay grape) have an intense cranberry aroma, and thus are easy to identify in blind tasting.

Gamay Noir is a permitted synonym for Gamay in the U.S.

History

The Gamay grape is thought to have appeared first in the village of the Gamay, south of Beaune, in the 1360s. Hugh Johnson, Vintage: The Story of Wine pg 133. Simon and Schuster 1989 . The grape brought relief to the village growers following the decline of the Black Death. In contrast the to the Pinot Noir variety, Gamay ripened two weeks earlier and was less difficult to cultivate. It also produced a strong, fruitier wine in a much larger abundance.

In July 1395, the Duke of Burgundy Philippe the Bold outlawed the cultivation of Gamay as being "a very bad and disloyal plant"-due in part to the varietal occupying land that could be used for the more "elegant" Pinot Noir. 60 years later, Philippe the Good, issued another edict against Gamay in which he stated the reasoning for the ban is that "The Dukes of Burgundy are known as the lords of the best wines in Christendom. We will maintain our reputation". ibid pg 134

Footnotes

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