Sometimes you’ve gotta get back to basics, ya know?

There are some varietals that need be revisited, and there are some you’ll want to revisit time and time again. In the case of natural wine, Gamay is everyone’s ol’ reliable, and for good reason. Gamay fucking slaps.

This little treat from Vignobles Bulliat is no exception, and I’m kicking myself for not buying more before it had sold out.

It’s clear and bright and juicy, with a touch of tobacco and a hint of concrete. Like plucking little red crunchy cherry-berries off a tree; it’s still a little wild. But the body, oh the body! Slightly curvier, more junk in the trunk, extra bodacious. True to the Morgon standard, she’s heftier, more satisfying, but still sitting in the light/medium range.

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine told me that we are no longer referring to wines as “sexy.”

“It’s just wine,” he said, indignantly. “It can’t be sexy. It’s just grape juice that sits in a fucking vat and goes bad. How is that hot?”

This wine might break that arbitrary rule.

Having spent the last decade of my life living in world-class Pinot territory, I’ve found myself tiring of it so rapidly that I mostly reach for Gamay these days. It’s livelier, and full of joie de vivre that I can’t pinpoint in most Pinot that’s being produced. The Willamette Valley is home to a few killer Gamay producers (see: Brickhouse), but most are so accustomed to slinging Pinot that they don’t see the potential sitting right on their volcanic stoop.

So we drink Morgon and rejoice in it, and hope that one day Oregon wineries get their shit together.