Domaine du NivalGamaret ‘Un de ces quatre’ 2020 (750ml)

Matthieu and Denis Beauchemin founded Domaine du Nival in 2013; a bad idea that just wouldn’t quit as Matthieu described it to me one time. Yet very quickly, they have made a name for themselves. They are already very well known and respected in Montreal. The wines are vivid, immediate, joyous. I love these damn wines.

Gamaret is a fairly recent crossing made from Gamay and a white German variety you’ve never heard of (Reichensteiner!). What they found, however, was that the grape made fairly interesting wines. Thus it has thrived, as a sort of insider’s wine, in places like Switzerland and northern Italy, having some prominence in the Valle d’Aosta. Matthieu, as it were, came across Gamaret while studying in Switzerland and he just couldn’t get it out of his mind; now he has what must be Quebec’s only Gamaret vines.

The 2020 Domaine du Nival Gamaret clocks in at only 10.6% alcohol, which is insane, because the wine feels dark and brooding, not bloody but meaty, peppery, dark fruited, toothsome – pair with a nice cooked wolf, that sorta wine. Called “Un de ces quatre,” meaning one of the four, referencing the main grapes planted at the estate (Gamaret, Pinot Noir, Vidal and Albariño), the phrase also denotes “one of these days,” a sly reference to how hard it was to get the Gamaret going in Montreal. Today they have only around 4,000 ares, two acres.

On the palate the dark fruit is layered, present, with tannins that are grippy yet pliable. It’s crazy, the wine feels substantial and light, saturating and also finessed, lean. Maybe it tastes like a solid vintage of Cornas from the 1980s, rustic and serrated and begging for food on a farmhouse table after a solid day’s work and not at all in line with a $500+ price tag, being fetishized under the spotlight on a white table cloth with asymmetrical tweezer-food? Eh, something like that. Anyway, this Gamaret from Quebec is immediate and authentic and delicious.