Blue Mountain releases 2022 Gamay Noir

Photo: Blue Mountain's Matt Mavety

When Blue Mountain Vineyard & Winery released its 2022 Gamay Noir, the release was only to its wine club. Consumers of British Columbia wines should expect to see that limitation often during the next few years. Due to winter damage to the Okanagan’s vineyards, wine production in the 2023 vintage was about half the expected quantity. And the severe freeze in January this year is expected to result in even less wine being made in the 2024 vintage. The result: wineries have begun to ration their limited wine inventories. And that will continue for several years because it will take the vines several years to get back to normal production, assuming some several normal winters.

Many British Columbia wineries are expected to continue making wine if they are allowed to import grapes. There seems to be a surplus of grapes in Washington. However, Blue Mountain is highly unlikely to resort to imported grapes. The winery has earned a high reputation with its estate-grown wines and will do what is necessary to protect that reputation. Blue Mountain also should have a good inventory of wines, including sparkling wines, from previous vintages. But if you want to be assured of drinking some, now is the time to join the wine club – if you are not already a member.

The Gamay Noir is, I believe, the first Blue Mountain red to be released from the excellent (and bounteous) 2022 vintage. The varietal is generally regarded as a little brother to Pinot Noir. The book Wine Grapes by Jancis Robinson and colleagues suggests the varietal is a “Burgundian refresher making wines generally but not always for early consumption.” Blue Mountain aims for more complexity, recommending its Gamay Noir can be aged for four to six years. Winemaker Matt Mavety has grown and made a wine reminiscent of a Beaujolais Cru, perhaps Morgon or Moulin-á-Vent.

This is a varietal that several dukes of Burgundy sought to banish. Duc Philippe le Hardi sought to outlaw it in 1395. The Robinson book quotes this decree, in which he calls the varietal a “very bad and disloyal” grape “from which come abundant quantities of wine. And this wine of Gaamez is of such a kind that it is very harmful to human creatures, so much so that many people who had it in the past were infested by serious diseases, as we have heard; because said wine from said plant of said nature is full of significant and horrible bitterness.” Growers were given five months to pull out their Gamay vines. There were subsequent orders to pull out the varietal in 1567, 1725 and 1731. Fortunately, none of these were obeyed fully. It is the seventh most planted red in France. Today, some of the best red wines in Burgundy are the ten Cru Beaujolais, made with well-grown Gamay Noir on very good sites. The Blue Mountain wine, as I have said, echoes Cru quality.

Here is a note on the wine.

Blue Mountain Gamay Noir 2022 ($30). The hand-harvested fruit went into open-top fermenters, macerating 18 days on the skins with daily pump-overs. The wine was fermented in barrel with natural yeast. It was then drained off the skins and aged a year in neutral oak barrels. The wine begins with aromas of cherry mingled with spice. On the palate, it is rich, even bold, with flavours of cherry and plum and with a silken finish. The ripe tannins support the age-worthiness of the wine. 92.