Gamay Noir 2024

“Rose Petals Over River Rocks”
Syrah has long been our fixation, and as we planted more and more Syrah blocks, we looked south of Syrah’s homeland for inspiration for what other varietals to plant alongside it.  We ended up concentrating on the Grenache and Mourvèdre grapes of the Southern Rhone.  It wasn’t until 23 years after our first Syrah planting that we looked to the winegrowing region to the North, the Gamay grape in Beaujolais.  
After own-rooting one acre of Gamay in 2016, we planted another 2.5 acres in 2018.   This block is head-pruned, to shade the delicate, thin-skinned grapes from sun, similar to Beaujolais plantings in France.  We have fallen in love with this new block and only classified our favorite lots of it into the Estate Grown Gamay this year.
For the first 6 years of production, we fermented the Gamay in a sealed stainless steel carbonic tank and then bottled the wine early.   The wine was labeled in our So Fresh carbonic label as “GDG”.  
In 2024, we fermented the Gamay in concrete like all our classic Estate wines, and we circulated the fermentation 3 times rather than leaving the wine sealed.   We then let the wine age twice as long as before, so the wine could unfurl and flesh out prior to release.
Healthy late winter and early spring rain pushed back bud-break by a few weeks and enabled all mature own rooted blocks to be dry-farmed for a second year in a row.  Summer weather remained moderate and the early ripening Gamay was one of the first picks of the year!
Crushed fresh, ripe berries lined by crunchy mulberry and rhubarb.  Rose petals over River Rocks. A high-toned note of cranberry and fern line the riper berries with upfront energy.  A clean, acid driven finish begging for Lyonnaise cuisine!  It’s going to be a joy to experience this wine as it softens over the coming months through 2030. The wine certainly has the stuffing to age.   It’s weight fits perfectly into France’s geography, the grape in between Pinot Noir and Syrah.