"I find people are shying away from Chardonnay," says sommelier Linda Gerin, co-owner of the restaurant Jean-Louis in Greenwich, CT, "and asking for more unusual wines, such as viognier."
So true.
Viognier is the wine of the moment. Yet the corkiest of the wine dorks and Gen XYZ are constantly looking to the future to seek out the more obscure wine grapes to pronounce the next big thing.
And what is the next big thing?
Depending on who you ask or which wine writer you read, it could be anything. So for the sake of bringing a somewhat obscure French grape to the limelight, let's take a look at a grape called marsanne.
Marsanne is one of the classic Rhone varietals, producing a deeply colored, almost amber white wine with an aroma of saffron, almond, and marzipan. It is believed to have originated in the town of Marsanne, near Montelimar in the northern Rhone Valley and is one of the eight white grapes permitted in the Cotes du Rhone appellation.
Though some producers create a single varietal from this wine, it is most often blended with roussanne. The relationship between the two grapes in the blend is similar to the symbiotic relationship between merlot and cabernet sauvignon, or sauvignon blanc and semillion, in that the union of the two produces a more balanced wine.
Marsanne's role in the blend is primarily textural, providing the full body, golden, almost amber color, oily character, higher alcohol content, and lower acidity. On its own as a varietal, marsanne has a chardonnay-like neutrality. Roussane provides the bright fruit flavor and pronounced almond aromatics.
Article comments