Uva Non Grata Gamay

Like all good stories, that of Boutinot France is both long and a little bit complicated! Boutinot began as a tiny importer in 1980, specialising in French wines. Paul Boutinot himself began by personally selecting the wines from France, back in the UK he would unload the trailer by hand. And deliver the crates of wines to customers himself. But good things grow and by the end of the decade we had become a bigger and better company. A company that not only sought out great wines but made them too. After 10 years later, Boutinot France started in January 1990. The first office was in the middle of the vines in Julienas; perfectly located to navigate the Beaujolais and Macon regions on the quest to make beautiful wines.

Samantha Bailey, who started as a wine enthusiast, was there at the beginning of this adventure. Since then, she has grown into Boutinot France’s Master Blender and has key responsibilities: building long-standing relationships, tasting, understanding the terroir and appellations, and pushing the boundaries. She is at the heart of the whole process from blending to quality assessment, making sure there is always a Boutinot touch in every cuvee. Boutinot are proud to also count Guillaume Letang and Julien Dugas in our winemaking team. Guillaume oversees the South of France and Languedoc, whilst Julien looks after our property in Cairanne. Together they have the local knowledge to select and blend the very best wines from throughout. Eric Monnin oversees every aspect of production and makes sure everything our winemakers blend and source is top quality.
Today, Boutinot’s French office has recently relocated to Macon, and has over 20 employees who take care of production across the whole of France, covering fresh whites and rosés from Gascony, mineral wines from Burgundy, and joyful varietal wines from Languedoc among others. Boutinot don’t use any single model to source our wines; instead, a combination of sources are used, from large-scale, high-quality co-ops to small, family growers and single domaines, as well as their own vineyards in Cairanne and Saint-Verand. Drawing on the expertise of the four winemakers and a network of partner growers, Boutinot seek to deliver the highest quality-to-price ratio possible for every wine.

Gamay,

Gamay loves the granite/siliceous soils of the vineyards in the hills to the north west of Lyon in eastern France. 2019 was a warm, dry year across France and the grapes were hand picked deliberately early to maintain freshness.

In the cellar, grapes are vinified using traditional carbonic maceration techniques (where fermentation is started by the weight of berries in the vat, crushing those below) followed by a short cuvasion to keep the up front, juicy fruit characters in this lighter style of wine.

For centuries maligned, mistreated and misunderstood, Gamay was outlawed by Philip the Bold in 1395. Some vignerons rebelled, hiding forbidden Gamay vines amongst ‘noble’ Pinot Noir. In their honour Boutinot France have ‘released’ the deliberately disruptive Gamay, bottled without appellation and without rules!

Bouncy, crunchy Gamay, this no-fuss wine is an irresistible fruit bomb packed with amazing primary fruit aromas, delicious soft red berry flavours and a note of dark chocolate. Gorgeous Gamay at its best.

Try with charcuterie, grilled herby chicken kebabs, or sausages on the barbeque.