Obscure Varietals of Savoie

I have recently tried some amazing wines from the small French Alpine region, Savoie. The wines from Savoie are consumed locally, so they’re not always easy to find outside of Savoie.  Luckily in the Bay Area we have great importers who have brought some Savoie wines to us. 

Aerial shot of where the Rhône meets Lake Geneva

Much of the terrain is too rocky and mountainous for viticulture but the wine produced here is really special.  Surprisingly the steep vineyards enjoy lots of sun exposure and great ripening, to produce not only light mineral driven wines but medium bodied floral whites and bright spicy reds. The Rhône river flows through the Savoie region from Lake Geneva towards the better known grape growing Rhône River Valley. 

Primarily a white grape growing region, the Savoie is home to some obscure varietals. Jacquère is the most commonly planted variety in Savoie with very high yields. Jacquère has high acidity and sometimes herbaceous and grassy aromas. Jacquère is best consumed young, when it shows a lively citrus palate. Its parentage links back to Gouais Blanc, making it a relative of Chardonnay. 

Altesse is unique to Savoie, it is referred to on wine labels as "Roussette de Savoie." Altesse has a floral and fruity character, combining richness and a mineral freshness, typical of many of the Savoie whites. Many of the best can be aged for years.

Most notably obscure is Grignet, which makes some unique and very aromatic sparkling wines in the Ayze subregion of Savoie. 

Other white wines grown in Savoie include: Roussanne, (better known in the Rhône Valley), Pinot Gris, and there is also some Chardonnay grown here. Chasselas is grown on Lake Geneva, across from its native Switzerland. The white wines of Savoie pair fantastically with lake trout, light shellfish and a variety of cheeses, especially Reblochon, a creamy cow’s milk cheese from Savoie. 

Mondeuse on the vine

Mondeuse is the oldest and most notable of the red varietals grown in Savoie.   Mondeuse produces a powerfully flavored, high acid, juicy, peppery reds.  The Barrel Room has a fantastic Mondeuse by the bottle at the moment: 2010 Jean Vullien Saint-Jean-de-la-Porte.

A very rare varietal found in Savoie is Persan, which was thought to be extinct because of it’s sensitivity to a mildew called odium.  However there are a few parcels of Persan still in existence. If you do come across some Persan, (which is more likely in Savoie) grab a bottle!  Persane makes a very unique wine which is meant to age for as many as 15-20 years.

Other red varietals grown here are Pinot Noir and Gamay imported from Burgundy and Beaujolais.     

The obscure and interesting wines of Savoie are worth exploring, they not only produce unique wines, but memorable wines that leave me wanting more!  As wines from Savoie and other lesser known regions become more readily available in the US, I find myself always looking for new and exciting wine regions to explore (and hopefully travel to myself!).

Santé!

-Carolyn

demystifying chardonnay

 

It’s very common to hear a customer in a restaurant or wine bar saying, “I’ll just have a glass of the Chardonnay.” If the customer is American, odds are this means they want a big, buttery, oaky California Chardonnay. If the customer is European, a Chablis with its laser precision, crisp stone fruits, and minerality may be what she is requesting. That these two opposing wine styles are created by the same grape lends to the mystery of Chardonnay: no white wine grape seems to be better known but less understood.







Unraveling the styles of Chardonnay today requires a bit of understanding of the origins of this prolific grape. This classic Vitis vinifera variety traces its roots back to eastern France (perhaps in the town of Chardonnay in the Mâconnais, whose name translates in Latin to “a place of thistles”), where it came about due to a natural cross-pollination between Pinot Noir and the ancient, nearly extinct Gouais Blanc. Pinot Noir likely evolved from wild Vitis sylvestris vines in the region around modern-day Burgundy. Gouais Blanc is thought to have originated somewhere in the Balkans; the emporer Probus of Dalmatia is said to have brought the grape to Gaul in the 3^rd century. In the eastern French countryside peasants made a simple quaffing wine with Gouais Blanc. Given time and proximity, the crossing of Pinot and Gouais Blanc was inevitable. These two parent grapes gave rise not only to Chardonnay, but to many other grape varietals used for making wine in France today, such as Auxerrois, Jacquere, Romorantin, Gamay, Riesling, and Colombard. Chardonnay proved to be very vigorous and easy to cultivate, adapting to almost all soil types and climates, so it soon gained quite a presence in the area.

The Cistercian Abbey of Pontigny

Prior to the founding of the Abbey of Cîteaux in 1098 by the Cistercians, many grapes grew all over the limestone escarpments of the Côte d’Or and the chalky soils of Chablis. The Cistercians, however, noticed differences between parcels of land and the resulting expression of terroir through the wines they produced; this expression was, to them, clearly a message from God and needed to be cultivated and understood. Thus the monks needed grapes that served as blank canvases, allowing the goût de terroir to be easily demonstrated through wine production… grapes which were never to be blended lest God’s message became muddled.
The Chardonnay grape was an obvious candidate for a white grape. It has relatively neutral characteristics when made into an unmanipulated wine. Simple and pure aromas of stone fruits and citrus, medium to full body, medium acidity, medium alcohol percentage. This middle-of-the-road nature allows it to be superbly terroir-expressive. The Cistercian monks adopted Chardonnay readily and purportedly planted it in Chablis at Pontigny Abbey in the 12^th century, from which it spread to the rest of Burgundy.

Given this origin of Chardonnay in Chablis, and the heavy reliance in general on tradition in Burgundy, it comes as no surprise that the wine style there leans toward the pure, unadulterated Chardonnay we expect from the region. The most traditional producers use very little oak and tend not to put their wines through malolactic fermentation at all. This generates a highly acidic wine notorious for its perfect pairing with oysters. Currently there is a division in Chablis between the traditionalists, who espouse maintaining the “Chablis style” by avoiding oak entirely, and the modernists, who embrace oak barrel aging claiming the result is a better, more marketable wine.

Chardonnay growing regions in the world, courtesy of The Wine Wise Company.

Chateau Montelena

From Chablis, Chardonnay spread to almost every winemaking region in the world. Many styles have emerged, but arguably none has gained such fame and opposed so distinctly the Chablis style as California Chardonnay.


In 1882, Charles Wetmore, President of the California State Viticultural Commission, brought clippings from Meursault to his winery La Cresta Blanca in Livermore Valley. Much of these vines were ripped up, however, during Prohibition, but some were secretly saved. Ernest Wente of Wente Vineyards planted some of the salvaged vines post-Prohibition in the 1940’s along with a few other clones. Eventually Chardonnay was being made in a Burgundian style in many vineyards. In 1976, Napa’s Chateau Montelena and Chalone validated California as a serious player in the world of Chardonnay with a victory over Burgundies at the influential blind tasting known as the Judgment of Paris. By 2005 nearly 25% of the world’s 400,000 acres of Chardonnay plantings were located in the state of California. These three decades saw a significant metamorphosis of style, from the pure expression of fruit of the initial 1970’s Chardonnays to the butter-bomb style we all know and love (or hate), evolving in the late 1980’s.



Why this style developed is a topic of debate. Some say the buttery Chardonnays came about as a response to the US pasta craze which hit the country 25 years ago: menus began featuring creamy pasta sauces that paired nicely with a big, round, buttery Chardonnay. Others attribute it to the import of French oak barrels in an attempt to mimic the Burgundian style. These barrels were bought new, of course, and because the winemakers needed to use them immediately they inadvertently doused their Chardonnay with brand new oak. In addition, the higher degree of grape ripeness achieved here in California produced a wine that could withstand more manipulation, and winemakers clambered to experiment with oak and malolactic fermentation to see what would happen to this new type of Chardonnay wine.

Regardless of the reasons why, these two opposing styles of Chardonnay exist in the wine world and are often referred to as “old-world” versus “new world.” Which suits you best is determined solely by your own palate. If you’d like to indulge in a bit of experimentation with Chardonnay, click here to view our flights and comparisons, and pay particular attention to the Old-World versus New-World comparison (for a comparison of styles), and the French Chardonnay Family flight (to experience French Chardonnay and its siblings, Jacquere and Romorantin).

Salut!

- Sarah