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You like lime with your beer? You'll love Pouilly-Fumé. Pouilly-Fumé is a region in the Loire Valley of France, near Sancerre. Its wines are made exclusively from the sauvignon blanc grape. The soil includes both chalky clay and silica, a setting that makes for bone-dry, mineral-tasting aromatic wines.
Michel Redde is a fifth generation winemaker whose family has been in the Loire for more than a century. This particular bottle, the "La Moynerie," relies on especially young grapes and is aged in stainless steel tanks -- no oaky vanilla in here. Like Sancerre wines (also made from sauvignon blanc), Pouilly-Fumé is crisp, citrusy, tart, tangy, grassy, flinty and light green in color. Unlike Sancerre, this wine is thick, almost herbal or musk-like, even smoky (after all, "fumé" is French for "smoked"). Wine doesn't get much more food-friendly, although you have to like the balance of acid, lime and stone.
Two warnings: Don't drink it too cold and don't confuse it with Pouilly-Fuissé, which is a Burgundian wine made from chardonnay grapes.
-- James Oliver Cury
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