Clairette

Clairette is one of the oldest and most enduring white grapes of the French Mediterranean — a low-acid, high-alcohol variety that has quietly underpinned the whites of the southern Rhône and Languedoc for centuries. On its own it makes soft, full-bodied, faintly aromatic wines of pale gold, with notes of apple, fennel and dried herbs and a slightly bitter, almond-tinged finish; it oxidises easily and was long the backbone of the old fortified and vermouth trade. Today it is prized mainly as a blending grape, lending body and a floral, herbal lift to Châteauneuf-du-Pape blanc and to countless Côtes du Rhône and Languedoc whites. Its most famous guise, though, is sparkling: the gently sweet, muscat-scented Clairette de Die of the Drôme, one of France's oldest sparkling wines.