Everyone knows Bordeaux. Everyone knows Champagne. And both are extraordinary — centuries of tradition producing some of the most important wines on earth. But the most interesting French wine right now — the bottles that sommeliers hoard and natural wine bars fight over — comes from regions that most American travelers skip entirely.
The Loire Valley
The garden of France. A river valley stretching 600 miles from the Atlantic coast to central France, lined with Renaissance châteaux and vineyards that produce some of the most versatile wines in the world. Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé — two villages facing each other across the Loire — make Sauvignon Blanc that bears no resemblance to the New Zealand version you're used to. Mineral, flinty, bone-dry. Vouvray produces Chenin Blanc from dry to dessert-sweet, sometimes from the same vineyard. The reds from Chinon and Bourgueil — made from Cabernet Franc — are the most undervalued wines in France. Visit Domaine Huet in Vouvray for biodynamic Chenin Blanc that ages for decades.
The Jura
The Jura is France's smallest wine region, wedged between Burgundy and Switzerland in the foothills of the Jura mountains. This is where the natural wine movement found its patron saint in the late Pierre Overnoy, whose wines sell for hundreds of dollars when you can find them. The signature wine is Vin Jaune — a sherry-like oxidative wine aged under a veil of yeast for six years and three months in barrel. It's unlike anything else produced in France. The town of Arbois is the center: visit Domaine Tissot for a modern take on Jura tradition, or Domaine de la Tournelle for natural wines that capture the mountain terroir.
Alsace
The most Germanic corner of France — half-timbered villages, Gothic churches, and steep vineyard slopes that produce the finest Riesling and Gewürztraminer outside of Germany. Alsatian Riesling is dry, precise, and mineral — the opposite of the sweet wine Americans associate with the grape. The Grand Cru system here is among France's most rigorously defined. Visit Domaine Weinbach in Kaysersberg or Domaine Zind-Humbrecht in Turckheim. The Alsatian Wine Route — 170 kilometers from Strasbourg to Mulhouse — passes through some of the most photogenic villages in Europe. Riquewihr, Eguisheim, and Colmar are the highlights.
The Northern Rhône
While the Southern Rhône gets the volume (Châteauneuf-du-Pape), the Northern Rhône gets the reverence. Côte-Rôtie and Hermitage produce Syrah of a complexity that Napa can only aspire to — dark, smoky, with a violet perfume that develops over decades. These are some of the steepest vineyards in Europe, terraced into granite hillsides above the Rhône river. Production is tiny. Prices have risen but still undercut comparable Burgundy by half. Visit E. Guigal in Ampuis or M. Chapoutier in Tain-l'Hermitage.
Languedoc-Roussillon
The wild south. France's largest wine region was once dismissed as a source of cheap table wine. A generation of ambitious winemakers has transformed it into one of the most exciting regions in the country — producing serious wines at prices that Bordeaux and Burgundy abandoned long ago. The landscape is dramatic: Mediterranean scrubland, limestone plateaus, medieval hilltop villages. Visit Mas de Daumas Gassac (the "Lafite of the Languedoc") or Domaine Gauby in Roussillon for wines that rival anything in France at a fraction of the price.
How to Read a French Wine Label
French wine is labeled by place, not grape. A bottle of Chablis doesn't say "Chardonnay" anywhere on it. A Sancerre doesn't mention Sauvignon Blanc. The French system assumes you know — or will learn — that the place tells you everything. The appellation (AOC or AOP) is the region. The producer is the name at the top. The vintage is the year. Everything else is detail. Once you understand this, the entire French wine world opens up.
