Savoie's serious red is also one of its most ancient natives. DNA work places Mondeuse in Syrah's immediate family: Mondeuse Blanche, its pale relation, is one of Syrah's two parents, which makes the alpine grape close kin of the Rhône's greatest red. The resemblance is audible in the glass — pepper, violet and an iron edge.
Before phylloxera, Savoie grew Mondeuse almost everywhere, and the vine's fall was steep: easier varieties took the replanted valley floors. What remains shows why the old terraces were worth building. On the steep schists of Arbin and the best slopes around Chignin, it makes dark, sinewy, peppery wine that ages like a northern Rhône in miniature — mountain wine that asks no indulgence.