Savoie is a wine region in eastern France, in the mountainous areas just South of Lake Geneva and on the border with Switzerland. The location and geography of the region has very much defined its Character, which is fragmented, hilly and slightly Swiss. This is evident in the fresh, crisp white wines produced here, as well as in the labels of the region's wines. Many bear a white cross on a red background - the flag of Switzerland and Savoy.
About three quarters of the region's wines are white. This is mainly because most of the red Grapes would have difficulty maturing properly in the cooler Climate of Savoy. Jacquère is the most widely planted white grape, due to its high yield. Altesse, traditionally known here as Roussette, is used to produce some of the finest wines in Savoie, including its own appellations of Roussette de Savoie and Roussette de Bugey.
How’s the weather been this year? Awful. ‘La nature m’écoeure’, one of my wine-growing friends posted on Facebook on 8 April, having been out to look at the frost-crippled shoots on his vines that morning: ‘Nature disgusts me’. It takes a lot to make a wine-grower feel that. He wasn’t alone. Jeremiads echo around the northern hemisphere as 2021 closes. It’s been the year of all the miseries. None suffered more horribly than the growers of Germany’s Ahr valley, where floodwaters caused by the fou ...
How’s the weather been this year? Awful. ‘La nature m’écoeure’, one of my wine-growing friends posted on Facebook on 8 April, having been out to look at the frost-crippled shoots on his vines that morning: ‘Nature disgusts me’. It takes a lot to make a wine-grower feel that. He wasn’t alone. Jeremiads echo around the northern hemisphere as 2021 closes. It’s been the year of all the miseries. None suffered more horribly than the growers of Germany’s Ahr valley, where floodwaters caused by the fou ...
Global demand for New Zealand wine saw exports rise by 9% to NZ$599m (£315m) in the first quarter of the new export year, to the end of September 2021, according to the latest data from New Zealand Winegrowers (NZW). A higher price per litre saw the average value of export wines rise by 4% for the three months, versus the same period of last year, but NZW also reiterated that managing tight supplies was a key challenge for wineries. ‘The ongoing demand for New Zealand wine has proven that the di ...