Persan

Identity

Persan is a Savoyard red now grown in tiny quantities, and one of the few grapes in this corpus to carry the black pepper note — rotundone's, which signs Syrah, Grüner Veltliner, Duras and Mondeuse Noire.

Five varieties, three of them Savoyard or Alpine. That is probably not a coincidence, but no source opened for this entry explains it, and it will therefore draw nothing from it.

A wine for keeping, in a region that makes few

Pl@ntGrape credits it with tannic wines, suited to ageing. Its structure bears that out: high tannin, high acidity.

That is unusual in Savoie, where the reds are mostly light and meant to be drunk young. Persan is the exception, and it is why it has been replanted in recent years — but that last claim is not sourced here, and this entry keeps to what the source says: tannic, suited to ageing.

In the vineyard

High vigour, "generally long-pruned and trellised". Small bunches and small berries, which raises the skin-to-juice ratio and accounts directly for the tannin.

Its phenology is not filled in beyond the vigour: neither bud burst nor ripeness appears in what the source gives. The fields stay empty.

In the glass

Black pepper first, then blackberry.

One thing to know about rotundone pepper, true of all five varieties that carry it: a fraction of tasters are anosmic to it and do not perceive it at all. Two people over the same glass of Persan will not describe the same wine, and neither will be wrong.

High tannin and high acidity: this is a wine that wants time, which the source confirms by calling it suited to ageing.

Where it is named

In Savoie, a principal variety of Vin de Savoie.

What this entry does not say

Its parentage, undocumented in the sources consulted. Its phenology. The area replanted, and the revival it is the subject of — real, but not sourced here.