2019 Division Wine Gamay Noir "Lutte", and the volcanic soils of Oregon wine country
Not all wine has to be serious. Some is there to shake you out of your wine rut and bring joy back into your relationship with wine.
For this issue of The Fizz, we’re doing something different—every couple of weeks, I release a new tasting note post for paid subscribers, but I realize that I’ve never released one for all of my lovely free subscribers. Today, we’ll talk about the 2019 Division Wine Gamay Noir “Lutte”, and why it’s a special wine to me. Then next week, it’s back to interviews.
Gamay, Gamay Noir, or Gamay Noir à Jus Blanc are all the same grape, and this little grape has had a long history and lots of cultural ups and downs. In France, it has been shunned, ripped out, planted, re-planted, and it has even had a hand in birthing the modern movement of minimal-interventionist winemaking. In the 1990s, four Beaujolais winemakers made a big splash fighting back against industrial winemaking methods and bringing attention to a more traditional way of winemaking—one that didn’t involve use of chemicals, additives, or change agents. These makers, coincidentally, were all working in the Gamay-favored region of Beaujolais, and their message was well received in the United States. This meant Gamay was suddenly getting more attention than it was used to.
Today, Gamay is more well known for Beaujolais Nouveau, the fun and quickly released wine that gives us a reason to celebrate in November, but has a wide range of quality (some is great, some not so great). It’s also known for its tradition of being carbonically macerated. This is a fermentation technique where grape bunches are put whole into a tank that’s filled with CO2 (either through a pump or squishy natural means). The grapes start fermenting inside the berry, which allows for more bright fruity flavors to develop. This technique can be used beautifully or abused where it becomes the overwhelmingly dominant characteristic of the wine. One of the reasons why I love the Division Gamay Noir is because they do it so well.
Every once in a while, I get into a wine rut. This could be a few days, weeks, or sometimes even months. Wine just starts to lose that sense of wonder, that child-like excitement for me and drinking feels like going through the motions, I do it because it’s just something I do. Thankfully, these ruts usually don’t last too long, and a wine comes around to break me out of that feeling and restore the joy that I associate with a wine that shakes you up a bit. The 2019 Division “Lutte” did that for me. This wine is an absolute pleasure to drink—it’s a wine that you want to share with all of your friends, or even anyone who is remotely around you.
The wine is bursting with fruit flavor—strawberry, raspberry, jolly rancher laffy taffy vibes are present immediately. It’s cheerful, and it doesn’t ask you to sit down and write an essay about it (although I guess that’s literally what I’m doing right now). This is a wine that’s there to remind you that wine is fun, it’s meant to be shared, it’s there to enhance your joy. Not all wine has to be serious, it doesn’t have to feel like work. It can simply be there to make you smile, and that’s what this wine does for me. The texture is silky and soft, and as it develops and warms, there’s some plum that comes in, and some more depth of fruit. This wine woke me up, shook me by the shoulders and said damn it bring some joy into your life! I needed it.
The 2019 Division “Lutte”, which means “fight to overcome” is an Oregon wine at heart. Made in the urban winery in Portland, Oregon, its Gamay grapes are sourced from three vineyards in Oregon’s Eola Amity Hills AVA, which is part of the Willamette Valley. These are partially volcanic soils! That’s right, the United States has volcanic soils of our own, and Oregon is part of the global 1% of volcanic soils on the Earth’s surface—that’s pretty special.
When people think of volcanic wines, they might think of wines from Sicily, Hungary, or the Canary Islands, but Oregon has a long volcanic history. Seventeen million years ago, a break in the North American continental crust poured lava into the Willamette Valley. “From about fifteen million to six million years ago, rivers of lava erupting from volcanoes on the east side of the Cascades flowed down the Columbia Gorge towards the sea, covering the layers of marine sediment on the floor of the emerging Willamette Valley with layers of basalt. [Eola Amity Hills]”
Specifically, Eola Amity Hills soils are partially made up of volcanic basalt from ancient lava flows and marine sedimentary rocks (the Willamette Valley used to be underwater). These soils make the vines work for their water and minerals, digging deep into the soil, giving the grapes more unique flavor and concentration. This volcanic basalt became a major presence in the Willamette Valley wine country, and gives Oregon wines an interesting distinction.
Wine isn’t just a product of where it comes from—it’s also a product of the winemakers’ choices. The “Lutte” is a mix of carbonic maceration and partially de-stemmed fermentation aged in neutral oak barrels. There were 330 cases made, and I’m so glad I was able to grab one of the bottles. I had saved it and put it away for a day when I needed a shake up, and it did the job. The summer of 2021 is for joyful, happy red wines. You heard it here first.
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