The French, who once supplied the world with quality cheap wine, have been mostly supplanted by the Australians and the Chileans over the past decade. This has caused not just consternation within the French wine industry, but serious financial difficulty.
Some producers, realizing the crisis, have made significant changes to their products. They use better quality grapes, have upgraded their production techniques, and have adjusted their pricing to compete with $7 bottles of Yellow Tail. They understand that consumers will not pay a 10 or 20 percent premium because the wine label has some French on it.
Case in point is the Les Jamelles, one of the finest $10 sauvignon blancs -- one of the finest sauvignon blancs at any price -- that I have tasted in a long while. This is French sauvignon blanc the way it used to be -- cheap, tasty and complete. There's hardly any citrus, because Les Jamelles understands that French wine is not supposed to taste like New Zealand wine. It does have some tropical flavor, mostly pineapple, as well as the minerality that French sauvignon blancs are supposed to have. A tip of the hat to Glenn Verk at Central Market for telling me about this.
Drink this, chilled, on its own, or with seafood, salads or grilled chicken.
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