Decanter World Wine Awards

Indeed, before 1880, the Chasselas grape variety was very present in the vineyard, particularly for the production of table grapes. Thanks to the railway, the grapes traveled from Pouilly to Paris in a few hours and were resold, freshly picked, in Paris. Unfortunately, everything stopped in the 1880s, with the arrival of phylloxera in the vineyard. This insect, which came from America in 1863, ravaged French vines, region after region, for around thirty years, until the vineyards were replanted with American rootstocks, naturally resistant to this little aphid. The Pouilly vineyard, then destroyed by phylloxera, the winegrowers decided to reorient themselves towards Sauvignon Blanc, a grape variety which allows them to produce more complex wines. The vines planted in Chasselas disappear little by little from the vineyard…