Savagnin

Savagnin is a high-quality white-wine grape cultivated almost exclusively in the Jura in eastern France. It is cultivated to a limited extent throughout the Jura vineyards (usually on the poorest marls soils on west-facing slopes) and may be included in any of the region's white wine appellations.

However it is most widely used but is usually in practice reserved for the Jura's extraordinary vin jaune. The Jura's most renowned wine undergoes a process similar to sherry, whereby a film of yeast covers the surface, thereby preventing oxidation but allowing evaporation and the subsequent concentration of the wine. The result is a "sherry-like" wine with a delicate, nutty richness.

Renowned ampelographer Pierre Galet maintains that Savagnin is identical to the Traminer which was once grown widely in Germany, Alsace, Hungary, and Austria, and that Gewürztraminer is the pink-berried musqué mutation of Savagnin.