Samuel Louis Smith Organic Santa Lucia Highlands Gamay Noir: Pair with Pate, Hearty Salads Morrocan Chicken

While on the third Wednesday of November we celebrate Zinfandel, the third Thursday is reserved for Gamay because it’s the day that the new harvest of Gamay Nouveau is released. And what a cause for celebration this was back in the day when they routinely ran out of wine! The Gamay grapes would be get picked in September and begin their journey from juice to wine. But not all Gamay is destined to be “nouveau” and drank as soon as it is finished fermenting. Gamay Noir is also made into wines worthy of aging like Samuel Louis Smith’s organic Gamay. These wines offer bright fruit, peppery notes, and acidity that work well with holiday meals like poultry or ham, and certainly with appetizers especially if you have pate on the table!

Samuel Louis Smith Organic Santa Lucia Highlands Gamay Noir: Pair with Pate, Hearty Salads Morrocan Chicken

A Menu for Samuel Louis Smith’s Gamay

• Baked brie with apricot jam and cinnamon
• Pate
• Salad with bacon, roasted squash, pepitas
• Moroccan chicken with couscous

Samuel Louis Smith Organic Santa Lucia Highlands Gamay Noir: Pair with Pate, Hearty Salads Morrocan Chicken

2021 Samuel Louis Smith Gamay Noir Escolle Vineyard Santa Lucía Highlands

ABV: 12.3%
SRP: current vintage is from Sonoma and $35
Grapes: Gamay Noir
4 barrels produced
sample for my review

Sam Smith started his own label Samuel Louis Smith Wines in 2014 to focus on higher elevation, cool climate, organic grapes. An artist by training and passion, his artwork adorns the labels and influences his palate too. He grew up in Bakersfield, making art, and learning languages, then continued his studies in French and Spanish at UC Santa Barbara. A semester in Bordeaux taught him about wine:

“I was already interested in wine but didn’t know a whole lot about it. I lived with a French host family and we drank wine: Sunday suppers. That’s where I first learned how to drink wine and how to better recognize subtleties.”

At UC Davis, he earned a winemaking certificate which didn’t teach him how to make wine “but how to fix wine.” Working in wineries around the world taught him more about his craft, as does his job is as the winemaker at organic Morgan in the Santa Lucia Hills working with owner and founder Dan Lee. When I interviewed him a few years ago for Slow Wine Guide, he was also busy waxing corks.

Sam picks his grapes early “to have nice freshness and natural acidity but also maintain a flavor profile that’s not overly sweet on the palate,” he told me. “I like structure and acidity but will age well.” He ferments wines using native yeasts which he cultures “to leverage and highlight the yeast coming from the vineyards.”  Reds are unfined unfiltered.

Sam selects organic higher elevation and cooler with most vineyard sites in Monterey Bay area. He wants to make wine from “mountainous high elevation cool climate, good growers, good people” remarking that “I spend a lot of money on grapes and they spend a lot of money on farming.”  

Read about his Syrah here with pairings.

Appearance:  Ruby, vibrant, violet rim, medium density, unfiltered.

Aroma: Fruit and florals, fresh crush, cranberry, raspberry, roses, carnation, grape stem and seed.

Palate: Tart fresh fruit, cranberry, raspberry, crabapple, oxalis, light in body, great minerality, salivating, subtle tannins, delicious, black pepper.

Pairing: Our experience with this Samuel Louis Smith gamay without food was good, but with food, this wine has a magnificent and surprising presence; it is just simply quite exceptional with food. This wine would be great with an array of dishes, and make a great choice for a Thanksgiving wine that’s not too heavy or rich but plenty complex with bright acidity. Seems it would go well with ham, turkey, and all of the rich sides that accompany that meal. So nice with the baked brie, as the wine loves the apricot, honey, and cinnamon spices on top. The wine brightens the palate and makes everything fresh and alive. Also quite perfect with the pate. This wine handles all of the elements at the table: the salad works wonderfully with the wine, the wine loves the spices salty bacon and the savory pepitas and the  dressing blends it all together the wine and the dressing in the salad cut through the richness and refreshes the palate. The moroccan chicken responds to the wine wonderfully as the spice in the dish responds perfectly to the spices in the meal.

What a great combination!