Beyond Beaujolais: Get acquainted with Gamay Noir

Wine brings people together. This is cause for great reflection for me personally because as you read this, I will have been retired from the University of California Teaching and Research Winery for several months. It is a very sentimental time in my life because of all the contacts I made in my thirteen-year career there. And above all, it all centered on wine. All facets of wine: Teaching, research, and of course, consumption with friends. At the moment, it is the consumption aspect that is giving me pause for reflection. Let me start this story by traveling back in time to my 29th wedding anniversary. My wife Polly and I were having dinner at one of the local Sacramento restaurants. When it came time to order the wine I was looking through the typical California offerings and was not all that impressed by what was available. So I decide to peruse their European selection. I have to pause the story momentarily to admit that remembering individual producers is a difficult thing for me, but I do remember regions. So