Touraine Gamay (Loire)

Touraine Gamay is the Loire Valley's crisp, chilled-down take on the Beaujolais grape: a pale, translucent, low-tannin red grown on the cool sandy-flint and clay-limestone terraces around Tours. Cooler and more marginal than its granite Beaujolais homeland, Touraine gives Gamay a leaner, brighter, more peppery cut — tart red cherry and crunchy strawberry over racy acidity and only modest alcohol, an unpretentious bistro red made to be drunk young and lightly chilled.