The Wines of Savoie: A French Alps Property Buyer’s Guide to Alpine Vineyards, Crus and Terroir

Ask most British skiers what they drink in the French Alps and the answer tends to be a predictable list: vin chaud on the terrace, the house red that comes with tartiflette, perhaps a bottle of champagne for the celebration dinner. What rarely features is the remarkable wine produced a short drive from the slopes — the whites of Apremont, the reds of Arbin, the honeyed Roussette of Chignin-Bergeron. For anyone who owns a ski property in the northern Alps, or is considering buying one, the Savoie wine region is an undiscovered asset at your doorstep.

Savoie is one of the smallest wine appellations in France, covering roughly 2,100 hectares of vineyard across the departments of Savoie, Haute-Savoie, Isere and Ain. For context, Bordeaux covers over 100,000 hectares. The scale is tiny but the character is distinctive: alpine-altitude vineyards, obscure indigenous grape varieties, crisp mineral whites and surprisingly serious reds. For Domosno clients — around 90% of whom are British second-home buyers — discovering the local wine is one of the quiet pleasures of owning a French Alps ski property. Explore the options across 40+ French Alpine resorts.

The Savoie wine region sits in a dramatic transitional zone. To the east rise the high peaks of the Vanoise, the Beaufortain and the Chablais — the same mountains that host Val d’Isere, Courchevel, Megeve and the rest of the French ski resort pantheon. To the west, the terrain softens into the Rhone valley, where vines have been grown since Roman times. The vineyards themselves cluster on the limestone slopes around Chambery, Aix-les-Bains and along the shores of Lake Bourget, climbing to altitudes of between 250 and 550 metres.

This altitude matters. Savoie’s wines have what wine writers love to call tension — a brightness and acidity that comes from cool nights and warm, sun-exposed slopes. Despite being at 45 degrees north, the vineyards enjoy surprisingly warm microclimates thanks to southern exposures and the moderating effects of the region’s lakes and rivers. The terroir is predominantly limestone scree, much of it deposited by the catastrophic Mont Granier landslide of 1248, which buried several villages and created the stony soils that now produce some of the finest Apremont white wines.

For ski property owners in nearby resorts — from Les Arcs and La Plagne in the Tarentaise to Courchevel and Val Thorens in the Trois Vallees — the Savoie vineyards are an easy day trip. Chambery, the regional capital, sits less than an hour’s drive from most Tarentaise resorts and functions as the natural base for wine tourism in the area.

Savoie wine is structured around four AOC (Appellation d’Origine Controlee) designations: Vin de Savoie, Roussette de Savoie, Crepy and Seyssel. The Vin de Savoie umbrella covers the largest share of production and permits the use of sixteen named crus, each tied to a specific village and often to specific grape varieties. The most famous crus — Apremont, Abymes, Chignin, Chignin-Bergeron, Arbin, Jongieux and Ayze — are increasingly cited on the international wine scene.

Apremont is the best-known Savoie cru internationally. Produced almost exclusively from the indigenous Jacquere grape, Apremont wines are pale, light and bone-dry with flavours of crisp apple, lemon zest and wet stone. They are the perfect fondue wine — their acidity cuts through melted cheese — and they also pair beautifully with oysters and freshwater fish from Lake Geneva. A good Apremont retails for 8-15 euros at the cellar door, a genuine bargain for a French AOC wine.

Chignin-Bergeron is the most ambitious white in Savoie. Made from Roussanne — locally called Bergeron — it produces richer, more aromatic wines with notes of honey, apricot, white flowers and a distinctive minerality from the steep limestone slopes above Chignin village. The best Chignin-Bergeron bottles age gracefully for 5-10 years and can rival high-end Northern Rhone whites at a fraction of the price. Look out for producers like Domaine Louis Magnin, Andre et Michel Quenard and Charles Trosset.

Ninety percent of people asked about Savoie wine will mention only whites. That is a mistake. The region produces a remarkable red from an indigenous grape called Mondeuse, which genetic research has linked to Syrah of the Northern Rhone. Mondeuse produces deep, peppery, aromatic wines with firm tannins, bright acidity and aromas of black fruit, violets and crushed pepper. The best examples come from the Arbin cru, a tiny appellation just east of Chambery, where steep slopes and warm exposures produce Mondeuse that can age for a decade or more.

Serious producers of Arbin Mondeuse — Louis Magnin, Domaine Giachino, Gilles Berlioz — are increasingly exported to Britain and the United States. Wine critics from Jancis Robinson to the Wine Advocate have been championing the grape as one of France’s most exciting lesser-known varieties. For ski property owners with a wine cellar (common in traditional Savoyard chalets), building a vertical of Arbin Mondeuse is both an enjoyable project and a quietly clever investment. For a broader look at French Alps mountain lifestyle, Mondeuse is very much part of the story.

If you prefer lighter reds, look for Gamay from Savoie — a rare but charming version of the Beaujolais grape grown at altitude. Persan, another indigenous red variety, was nearly extinct by the 1980s but has been rescued by a handful of committed growers and now produces some of the most distinctive and age-worthy reds in the region. The best Persans from Domaine Giachino and Prieure Saint-Christophe are collectibles.

Part of what makes Savoie wine so distinctive is its roster of 23 permitted grape varieties, many of which are found nowhere else on earth. Where most French wine regions are built around a handful of international grapes (Cabernet, Merlot, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir), Savoie leans into obscure local cultivars that have adapted over centuries to the alpine climate.

The dominant white is Jacquere, which accounts for roughly half of all plantings. It is the grape of Apremont and Abymes, valued for its reliability, crisp acidity and subtle apple-and-lemon flavour profile. Altesse, locally called Roussette, is a more aristocratic variety — the basis of the Roussette de Savoie AOC and the Marestel cru, producing wines with notes of honey, nuts and dried flowers that can age beautifully for ten years or more. Roussanne (Bergeron), as noted above, dominates the Chignin-Bergeron cru.

For reds, Mondeuse Noire is the flagship. Persan, Pinot Noir and Gamay fill out the red grape portfolio. The sparkling wines of Ayze are made from a grape called Gringet, which is essentially found only in Savoie and produces delicate, floral traditional-method sparklers that rival fine Champagne. If you have never tried a Gringet brut from Domaine Belluard, you are in for a revelation.

Savoie wine evolved alongside Savoie food, and the pairings are almost too obvious to list — but they deserve to be spelled out. Fondue Savoyarde, the classic dish made with Beaufort, Abondance and Emmental de Savoie, is traditionally cooked with Apremont or Abymes, then served alongside a fresh bottle of the same wine. The acidity of the Jacquere cuts through the cheese and keeps the palate fresh. Substitute Chignin or Chignin-Bergeron if you prefer something richer.

Tartiflette, the mountain’s other cheese monument, goes equally well with Apremont, though some locals insist on a glass of Chignin. For raclette, the crisp whites work beautifully but so does a cold bottle of Roussette de Savoie, whose honeyed edge pairs surprisingly well with melted cheese and cured ham. For the aficionados, a well-chilled sparkling Ayze Gringet is the classier aperitif option before any winter meal.

For heartier dishes — diots (Savoyard sausages), potee savoyarde, wild boar or venison — Mondeuse from Arbin is the natural match. Its peppery structure and bright acidity hold up to rich, slow-cooked meats in a way that few other reds can manage. For a more detailed look at Savoyard cuisine and its wine pairings, see Domosno’s French Alps food and wine content hub. And for those exploring the broader mountain lifestyle, wine and food are central.

The official Route des Vins de Savoie is a series of three signed itineraries that guide visitors through the region’s key vineyard villages. The most famous loop starts in Chambery, passes through the Apremont and Abymes villages on the shoulder of Mont Granier, climbs to Chignin and its hillside crus, continues to Arbin for Mondeuse tastings, then winds north towards Montmelian and Cruet. A full day is enough to taste at four or five domaines, have a proper Savoyard lunch and return to your ski apartment or chalet by dinner.

Many ski property owners combine a wine visit with the journey to or from the resort. If you are heading to Les Arcs or La Plagne, Chambery sits almost exactly on the route from Lyon or Geneva airport. The same is true for Courchevel, Meribel and Val Thorens — an hour’s detour from Chambery adds almost nothing to the overall journey and transforms a transfer into a mini holiday. In summer, when alpine traffic is lighter, the Savoie vineyards make an ideal weekend escape from resorts like Sainte-Foy-Tarentaise or Valmorel.

Some of the best-known domaines offer formal tours and tastings, often with English-speaking guides during the summer season. Domaine Louis Magnin (Arbin), Andre et Michel Quenard (Chignin), Domaine Giachino (Apremont) and Prieure Saint-Christophe (Freterive) are among the most celebrated producers and all welcome visitors by appointment. Expect to pay 5-15 euros per head for a tasting flight, often refunded against purchases.

There is a quiet but real property-market dimension to the Savoie wine story. Ski buyers increasingly want a year-round lifestyle proposition, not just a winter bolt-hole, and the presence of a serious wine region a short drive away enhances the case for lower-altitude villages and resale chalets with cellars. Traditional Savoyard properties often come with vaulted stone caves that are ideal for wine storage — a detail that rental marketing increasingly highlights for sophisticated guests.

Domosno’s buyer data suggests that properties with wine cellars or dedicated tasting rooms fetch a 5-8% premium on the resale market, and these features are proving popular in new-build VEFA programmes too. Several recent developments in Megeve, Morzine and Les Gets have incorporated temperature-controlled wine rooms as a standard high-spec feature. For investors, the wine-tourism angle also creates summer rental demand that some pure ski-focused properties struggle to capture.

The broader point is that the French Alps are not only a ski destination — they are an interconnected regional lifestyle, and Savoie wine is an integral part of it. Buying a ski property here is therefore about buying into a culture as much as a building. It is one of the reasons Domosno has focused exclusively on the French Alps since 2005 — the depth of the offering is hard to match anywhere else in Europe. To start a property conversation, visit our contact page or send us a client form.