The UnCorker

Weird Wine of The Week: Eric Chevalier’s Fie Gris

August 26, 2009 | In WINE REVIEWS |

Can a wine made with the heirloom savignon blanc ancestor “Fie Gris” take on a world class Sancerre?  What would happen if you took one of uber-importer Kermit Lynch’s more off-the-wall discoveries and faced it off against a classic, famous appellation wine in the same price range?   Does it hold up?  Is there any compelling evidence that a wine-drinker - when given the choice - should choose to go weird?

Well, in general we think so.  That’s why we spend so much time flirting around the edges of what’s available in the US wine market - partly out of boredom, but also because there is a lot of value lurking off in the shadows.

Fie Gris vines were discovered in Tourraine and eslewhere in the southern Loire and are believed to be the ancestors - the pre-Phylloxera ancestors! - of savignon blanc.  This sounds so promising right from the get-go.   After all, it was Phylloxera that wiped out so many strains of heirloom grapes throughout Europe and forced growers onto mostly the same rootstocks and clone varieties.

The beauty of the Fie Gris is that it tastes really different.  You see  things like green pepper in people’s tasting notes - but it doesn’t always come across on the palate.   Especially in savignon blancs - which tend to have strong citrus flavors that obscure such subtleties. You may be a super-taster and be able to  identify the precise genus and species of each fruit, twig, nut, and stone that you are using as a tasting metaphor. You may have a normal palate but have trained yourselves - master sommellier style-  to identify and classify the wines - but let’s face it, tasting notes are often a stretch.   According to Jamie Goode’s excellent book “The Science of Wine”, most of us pick up about four flavors (max!) in anything we’re tasting, and if you count grapes as one of those, then that leaves you with three.  But then a wine comes along and you think - holy bejezzus.. now I get what these tiresome bastards mean when they say a wine tastes like [insert flowery tasting note reference here.]

Here’s a wine that  is really different and pronounced in a way that immediately hits your nose and palatte - strong green pepper and spice - think jalapeno, or tomatillo.  A decided lack of citrusy flavor, but with some other mysterious source of refreshing acidity.  This is what we want our Sancerre’s to be, really.    Vegetal, earthy - but incredibly light, spicy, and minerally.   And avoiding the grapefruit-style flavour profiles makes these fun and unusual flavor profiles so much easier to discover. What a perfect match for seafood this was.  Mario Batali has claimed that his secret is basically adding acid and spice to simple Italian dishes.  Well, this is a wine that does that very thing - which makes it a fantastic accompaniment to simple roasted or grilled fish.

Just to prove our point, we immediately opened a bottle of Lucien Crochet’s 2007 Sancerre, a major name producer which retailed at the exact same price point - $23 - to compare.     Tight, lean, and steely.   Compared to the Fie Gris, the aromatics were buried and calling flavor notes out was more an act of faith and imagination than sensory perception.   And Crochet is considered a bargain in Sancerre.   It only goes to show you that when in doubt, go weird.