Seyssel is the only single-Village appellation in Savoie, located 32 km South of Geneva on the western edge of the French Alps. Wine has been produced in Seyssel since the 11th century and over the years the area has built up a reputation for high quality, helped by the tourists who have always flocked to the region. Although still white wines are allowed by appellation law, the region is best known for its Rich, Floral">floralSparkling wines, mainly from the Altesse and Chasselas grapes. The village of Seyssel is located on Part of the Haut-Rhône, as it forms the westernmost border of Savoie before heading south to the famous hillsides of the Rhone Valley wine region.
Curiously, Seyssel is actually split between two administrative departments: the Ain (home to the Bugey appellation) on the west bank of the Rhône, and Savoie on the east bank. This split has created an unusual situation where the two halves are recognized as independent communes, both called Seyssel. The small village of Corbonod (on the Savoy side) is also covered by the Seyssel appellation. The vineyards of Seyssel are located on the slopes of the mountains and ridges surrounding the river.
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 ...
‘New’ is the second most popular word in any sales catalogue. (The first is ‘Free’.) We scribblers can’t resist it: it guarantees copy of one sort or another. Even in the slowly evolving world of wine, where the main ethos of the product is historical continuity, ‘new’ sells. To someone like me with a strong sense of history, not to mention conservative tastes, it can be a bit unsettling. It’s not really change that bothers me. There is always room for improvement. What can irritate me is change ...
Being notably peated, the inaugural chapter emerged in 2020, followed by Chapter Two in 2021, finished in a first fill Port pipe and refill Bourbon cask. The concluding sixth chapter is reserved for release in 2025, coinciding with the 200th anniversary of the foundation of the Old Midleton site, which operated from 1825 to 1975. ‘When it’s gone, it’s gone, which is sad in some ways, breaking the link to the old distillery,’ said Kevin O’Gorman, the Master Distiller and head of maturation of the ...
