The most thoughtful Bugey vigneron, Patrick Charlin retired after the 2017 vintage having made wine for four decades; rather sadly, his children had no interest in taking over the estate. The following is the second excerpt from Wines of the French Alps: Savoie, Bugey and beyond, the forthcoming book by Wink Lorch and features a… View more
Meet Raphaël Bartucci: born of Italian immigrants, he was brought up in the Moselle region in eastern France. He collects fossils from the vineyards and displays them museum-style in the cosy tasting room below his house. The following is an excerpt from the Northern Bugey section of Wines of the French Alps: Savoie, Bugey and… View more
Over the past couple of years, a dispute has been raging between two very small French appellations – Bugey and Clairette de Die. In some ways this story sums up all that is mystifying about the legal intricacies of the French appellation system, in other ways it simply smacks of protectionism. And then, despite the… View more
In preparation for my new self-published book in the making, I’ve been spending some time pondering what makes wines from the French Alps so special. I’ve also been trying to define where the wine regions of the French Alps begin and end, and indeed why. My first book, Jura Wine, seemed impossible to create when… View more
In the absence of that wonderfully useful annual guide Wine Report – no 2010 has been published and 2011 is unlikely – I thought a roundup of random news from Savoie might be useful. Some of these items are not so new at all, but Savoie news travels rather slowly. The text I provided for… View more
