Petite Arvine

Petite Arvine is the star indigenous white grape of Valais, the sun-baked upper Rhône valley of Switzerland, where it produces one of the most distinctive Alpine whites in the world. Grown on steep, dry, stony terraces high above the river — and, across the Alps, in the Valle d'Aosta of north-west Italy — it gives an aromatic, high-acid dry white built around grapefruit and citrus, white flowers, exotic fruit and rhubarb, finished with an unusually pronounced saline, almost salty tang that is the variety's signature. Made both bone-dry and, in warm years, as a lusciously sweet late-harvest flétri, it is light to medium in body, vividly fresh, and one of the great mountain wines for fondue, lake fish and Alpine cheese.