Quintessence Pouilly Fume 2017

Quintessence Pouilly Fume 2017

Pouilly-Fum a dry white wine made from Sauvignon Blanc grapes is one of the Loire Valley’s most revered wines. It is rivaled in this regard only by Sancerre, just the other side of the Loire River, and perhaps Vouvray.

The Pouilly-Fum appellation was created in 1937 originally as Blanc Fum de Pouilly. The village’s Chasselas-based wines gained the Pouilly-sur-Loire title at the same time.

The Pouilly-Fum name is composed of two parts. ‘Pouilly’ is short for Pouilly-sur-Loire, the village the wines come from. ‘Fume’ is short for Blanc Fum, which is the local nickname for Sauvignon Blanc. It is sometimes understandably confused with Pouilly-Fuiss (a Chardonnay-based wine from southern Burgundy).

The fum in Blanc is French for ‘smoky’. It denotes the struck gunflint aroma that characterizes the local Sauvignon Blanc wines. This distinctive smell is often referred to as Pierre fusil, which means ‘flint’ (literally ‘rifle stone’). It is a key point of differentiation for Pouilly-Fum’s winemakers and a source of great local pride.

Aromatically speaking, Pouilly-Fum wines are some of France’s most vivacious, although they are typically less pungent than the notoriously grassy styles of Sauvignon Blanc produced in New Zealand (particularly Marlborough). They have a vibrant streak of green fruit aromas (lime, green apple, gooseberry) supported by mineral aromas of wet wool, slate and smoky flint.