Chasselas

Identity

Chasselas holds a particular status in French ampelography: it is the reference. Every date in this corpus — "bud burst three days after Chasselas", "ripeness four weeks after Chasselas" — takes it as zero. Every grape entry you read here is dated against it.

Read any entry in this encyclopedia and you meet it without its being named. It is the yardstick of the French growing calendar.

What makes a yardstick

It buds early and ripens early — first period — which places it at the very start of the cycle. A useful reference is a variety that opens the season: everyone comes after it, and the gaps count in days or weeks in one direction only.

Its skin is thin. That is what makes it an excellent table grape, valued for its flesh and sweetness, and it is also what makes it susceptible to grey rot. It also fears powdery mildew. An early, thin-skinned variety is one you pick quickly.

Its acidity is low — Pl@ntGrape gives it no other quantifiable winemaking character, and this entry invents none.

In the glass

Two descriptors here, and it is worth saying what they are worth: they are readings, not quotations. Chasselas is a discreet variety, and that is precisely its reputation — a white judged on its texture and freshness rather than on its perfume.

The flint note deserves a word. It is not an aroma of the fruit but a mineral reading tasters attribute to Chasselas on certain soils, and it is carried here at low intensity. This corpus keeps it because it is the term tasting actually uses, while knowing that no compound corresponds to it simply.

Where it is named

In Alsace, a principal variety, made under the "Chasselas" or "Gutedel" usage designation — the second being the name it carries on the other side of the Rhine. The specification there names Chasselas B and Chasselas Rose Rs separately.

In Savoie, a principal variety of Vin de Savoie, and an accessory at Seyssel, behind Altesse.

Both are mountain or foothill vineyards, cool, where its earliness is an asset: it ripens where later varieties would not finish.

What this entry does not say

Its Swiss career. Chasselas is the dominant white of the Valais and of the canton of Vaud, where it makes wines with no French equivalent, and that history was not opened for this entry. It is the most significant gap: outside France, that is where it matters most.