Parentage — Parentage unresolved; an old native of the Savoyard valleys
white flowers
green apple
citrus
alpine herbs
flint smoke
Budbreak
Mid-late — useful under alpine frost
Maturity
First epoch; picked early to keep its mountain freshness
Leaf
Medium, orbicular, five-lobed; downy underside
Bunch
Medium to large, conical, compact
Berry
Medium, spherical, greenish-white turning pale gold; juicy, thin-skinned
Jacquère grows on the ruins of a catastrophe. In 1248 the north face of Mont Granier collapsed, burying villages south of Chambéry; the scree slopes the landslide left behind — Apremont, Les Abymes — proved perfect vine country, and the alpine native that colonised them became Savoie's everyday white.
It is the alpine quencher: light, dry, faintly smoky and herbal, rarely above eleven degrees, made to be drunk young with fondue and lake fish. High yields long kept it in the category of mountain carafe wine, but its low alcohol and stony restraint read differently now — growers who tame the vigour find in it a white as clear and cold as the streams that cross its vineyards.
In the blend
Share of this grape in a typical blend of each wine