Gamay Beaujolais Gamay Beaujolais Gamay Beaujolais is a varietal designation for a Californian grape variety, an early ripening clone of Pinot noir. In the late 1930s, an early pioneer of the American viticulture, Paul Masson, brought with him several Burgundian grapes for his winery in California. One of those grapes he believed to be the Gamay variety from the Beaujolais region in France, which in the 1940s University of California at Davis (UCD) researchers christened "Gamay Beaujolais". In the late 1960s, UCD scientists decided that Gamay Beaujolais was a clonal selection of Pinot noir, and that California's version of the true Gamay
Gamay is commonly grown in the Niagara Peninsula in Canada, some producers being in the Short Hills Bench, Beamsville Bench and St. David's Bench to mention a few, as well as in Prince Edward County. Chàteau des Charmes in Niagara-on-the-Lake has a regional clone which they discovered, Gamay Noir Droit, which is a recognized mutation. It is also grown successfully by a small number of wineries in Australia to make a range of wines including light bodied red wines suitable for early drinking. Gamay has also been introduced into Oregon's Willamette Valley wine region, a place known for its wines made