Top 100 white wines of Savoie - Page 6
Discover the top 100 best white wines of Savoie as well as the best winemakers in the region. Explore the varietals of the white wines that are popular of Savoie and the best vintages to taste in this region.
Discovering the wine region of Savoie
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.
Discover the grape variety: Altesse
The Altesse white grape variety is French in origin, but its ancestors were brought from Cyprus. It then developed in the vineyards of the southeast of the country. The Montagnieu fusette or arbane, as it is also called, buds early in the year. A cottony veil covers the first buds. The involuted blade and the U-shaped petiolar sinus distinguish the adult, three-lobed leaves. During, sometimes for late vengeance, the clusters of medium or small size are winged, compact and cylindrical.the fruits reveal a melting pulp under a film of variable color. The pink-tan colour replaces the early reddish yellow when the berries ripen. If they persist, the berries take on a lilac hue. The vinification promises sparkling, aromatic and elegant sweet whites, or dry whites. Altesse is a grape variety to be carefully maintained against acariosis and erinosis.
Food and wine pairing with a white wine of Savoie
white wines from the region of Savoie go well with generally quite well with dishes of pork, rich fish (salmon, tuna etc) or vegetarian such as recipes of tagliatelle with carbonara, baked salmon mediterranean style or tuna, pepper and tomato quiche.
News from the vineyard of Savoie
What the Decanter team is drinking this Christmas
Tina Gellie, Content Manager and Regional Editor (Australia, South Africa, New Zealand & Canada) It was a big year of Decanter travel for me, heading to Napa and New York in June, South Africa in October and most recently a week each in Margaret River and South Australia. These trips have formed the basis of my festive selections. Christmas lunch on North Stradbroke Island (reunited with my family after four years, no thanks to Covid) always starts with oysters, followed by a bucket of prawn ...
Andrew Jefford: ‘2021 has been the year of all the miseries’
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 ...
Letter from… Martin Crozier-Cook, a busy merchant
Martin Crozier-Cook is wine manager at Jeroboams food and wine store in Holland Park, west London. Jeroboams was voted Outstanding Retailer of the Year in the 2022 Decanter Retailer Awards Christmas time is when things get crazy – we all know this from our own experience of shopping in December. It brings out all sorts of behaviour in people. I help manage the Jeroboams store in leafy Holland Park, and I can tell you that a smile and a good sense of humour are absolutely necessary in making it t ...