Good wine and a great cause--sound like a perfect pairing?

Then make sure to carve out some time this week to stop by Weygandt Wines for "Ga May"--a special effort by DC-area restaurants, bars, and wine shops to make a difference in the fight against pancreatic cancer.

Ga May was created by Max Kuller (Wine Director at Doi Moi on 14th Street) to honor his father, Mark, cofounder of DC's Doi Moi, Estadio, and Proof restaurants. Sadly, Mark passed away last year after a fight with pancreatic cancer.

To honor his father's memory and aid others in the fight against this awful disease, Max created Ga May and enlisted others in the DC food and beverage community to donate a portion of all Gamay sales to the Lustgarten Foundation, an organization dedicated to advancing the scientific and medical research related to the diagnosis, treatment, cure and prevention of pancreatic cancer.

At Weygandt Wines, we're proud to be a part of this effort, and we'll donate 50% of all gross sales of Gamay through the end of the month to this important cause.

 

(While our normal six-pack and case discounts will still apply, customers may choose to pay full price in order to maximize their donation.)

We're also looking forward to the Ga May 2015 Grand Tasting at Prequel on May 29, a great event to cap off a month of fundraising. See the information in the sidebar for more details.

Not familiar with Gamay? You should be.

 

Spawned from Pinot Noir and dating back to the 14th century, the varietal makes up the vast majority of wines from France's Beaujolais region, and doesn't get nearly the attention it deserves.

Weygandt Wines carries a huge selection of Gamay-based wines from some of the best producers Beaujolais has to offer. These wines-particularly those hailing from the ten villages and regions in the foothills of the Beaujolais mountains that have earned the Cru Beaujolais designation (St-Amour, Juli?nas, Ch?nas, Moulin-a-Vent, Fleurie, Chiroubles, Morgon, R?gni?, Brouilly and C?te de Brouilly)-possess a true sense of place and stunning purity, and represent some of the best values in our store.

Our Gamay producers include the following exceptional estates:

• Pierre-Marie and Martine Chermette spearheaded the generational revolution in Beaujolais. The visionary husband and wife team (with whom Peter has worked for over 20 years) manages Domaine du Vissoux, based in St.-V?rand in the southern end of the appellation. They make estate-bottled red, white, and sparkling wines from prime parcels in St. V?rand, Oingt, Vaux-en-Beaujolais, Clochemerle, Brouilly, Fleurie, and Moulin-?-Vent--all from granite soils.
• Daniel Bouland is perhaps the greatest producer of old-fashioned Morgon around. From less than four hectares of old vines, he makes wines more comparable to fine C?te de Nuits Burgundies than to typical Beaujolais. His Morgon Corcelette vineyard mostly consists of 60+ year-old vines. And his Morgon Delys vineyard dates back to 1926! All his grapes are hand-harvested and vinified with full clusters.
• Ch?teau Grange Cochard produces small quantities of Morgon from estate-grown grapes only. Sarah and James Wilding purchased this formidable estate in 2008 and are actively rejuvenating it to produce fine worldclass wines. They have some exceptional parcels of vines, the majority being more than 50 years old.
• Situated high in the hills above Fleurie, Domaine de Prion and the two brothers who oversee it (Sylvain and Christian Chanudet) are dedicated to doing everything the right way on their 16 hectares of Cru-designated land: natural viticulture, extremely low yields, whole-cluster fermentation, indigenous yeasts, traditional carbonic fermentation, no added sulfur and a long cuvaison (20-25 days!). The resulting wines (all unfiltered) are truly beautiful, with plenty of depth and concentration all while maitaining a graceful balance.

Stop by the store this week to try some of these excellent wines for yourself--and help us honor Mark Kuller and fight pancreatic cancer in the process.