Mondeuse Noire

Syrah's little-known half-sister

Few French varieties have a pedigree as precisely documented as mondeuse noire, and few pedigrees are as poorly known to the wider public. VIVC confirms by genetic markers that mondeuse noire was born of a cross between mondeuse blanche and tressot — the very same mondeuse blanche that, crossed this time with Ardèche's dureza, gave rise to syrah. The two varieties are therefore not parent and child, as is sometimes loosely said, but half-siblings, united by one and the same Savoyard mother. The closeness does not stop at genealogy: VIVC lists, among mondeuse noire's roughly hundred historical synonyms, the names "Grosse Syrah" and "Syrah Grosse" — evidence of an old nomenclature mix-up, born from an ampelographic resemblance their shared parentage directly explains.

A vigorous variety, kept on a short leash

Unlike its white cousin, for which no source consulted gives a vigour word of its own, mondeuse noire is described unambiguously by Pl@ntGrape as "a vine of good vigour" — an explicit claim, distinct from any mention of fertility or yield, that calls for short pruning to keep it in check. It thrives on the same clay-limestone, stony hillside scree as jacquère and altesse, Savoie's characteristic glacial terroir, but shows appreciable resistance to grey rot and excoriosis — two diseases the neighbouring white varieties are, by contrast, particularly exposed to.

The most structured red of the Savoie vineyard

Where gamay and pinot noir give Savoie its light, easy-drinking reds, mondeuse noire takes the opposite path: tannic, deeply coloured, dense, it produces the most structured wines of the entire Vin de Savoie appellation. Two complementary geographic denominations, Arbin and Saint-Jean-de-la-Porte, are even reserved exclusively for it — mondeuse N is the sole variety allowed there, with no blending possible. Pl@ntGrape credits it with a medium sugar potential carried by good acidity, and above all an ageing ability that clearly sets this variety apart from the region's other reds: the best Arbin cuvées, in particular, reward several years of cellar patience.

Three varieties, one name

Savoie's nomenclature can be confusing: three distinct varieties carry the name "mondeuse" in the official French catalogue of grape varieties. Mondeuse noire, described here, is the most widely grown and the most celebrated of the three. Mondeuse blanche, its own parent and a variety in its own right despite the shared name, is now down to a handful of hectares. Mondeuse grise, finally, is nothing more than a simple colour mutation of mondeuse noire — three varieties, three profiles, one surname, and a vigilance the genealogy itself demands.