An hour after the doors opened on the afternoon of May 1, people were already wearing the I Love Gamay event T-shirt: “The Gamay Made Me Do It,” lettered in pink over black.


Despite the fact that Oregon has a mere 30 acres planted to gamay, the variety is enjoying a surge in popularity, thanks to a new generation of urban winemakers who’ve caught on to Beaujolais as a relatively affordable and deliciously drinkable red. Among them are Tom Monroe and Kate Norris, the organizers of the event, who were turned on to it while working harvest in Fleurie, in 2009. As Monroe recalls, “There were abandoned vineyards, seventy-year-old vines, all over the place. You had this feeling of desperation, that gamay was a cast-off grape that would fade away into the sunset.” Monroe and Norris loved the grape’s drinkability and it’s light, peppery quality, so when they founded Division Wine Co. in Portland, they sought out gamay. Around the same time, another Portland winery, Bow & Arrow, also began working with the grape.
At the Elder Hall event, producers spoke of gamay’s ability to flourish in sites that might not be suited to pinot noir, the state’s flagship grape variety. “This is from lower-elevation sandy soils, where it’s too warm to grow pinot,” explained Barbara Gross of Cooper Mountain as she poured her robust, gently tannic gamay from the biodynamically farmed Johnson School Vineyard.
After the festival, growers and attendees gathered for a dinner featuring aged gamays from Oregon and Beaujolais. A 1990 Brouilly was a standout, says Norris, and a 2000 Gamay Noir from Brick House turned a few heads. But the dinner wasn’t really a “Judgment of Portland”—just a chance to enjoy the nuances of gamay while imagining its potential in Oregon.
This story was featured in W&S August 2017.
A former restaurant server, Rachel Signer knows firsthand the challenges of working for tips. She is now a Brooklyn-based writer, focused on food and wine.
This story appears in the print issue of August 2017.
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