This used to be a very common white wine in the USA many years ago. I don’t think I have seen it for a long time, but maybe I have just not been visiting those shelves.
If they still make cheap white jug wines, you will probably find it there, blended, but not identified by name.
I’m not sure about French Colombard as a stand alone but it does still exist in some of the white wine field blends. I know Bucklin has a white blend that includes French Colombard.
Tom
Martha Stroumen has a few wines with it too
Just had a bottle of 2018 Woodenhead: Woodenhead 2018 French Colombard “Halfshell White” | Woodenhead Vintners
Not the most sophisticated ever, but definitely refreshing, and the seafood connection makes sense.
I made one in 2018 from Sonoma. I picked it too early and screwed it up stylistically and never did release it. My experience with it from that was that the variety does not present enough interest picked “fresh”, like many other whites do. I think the grape needs to be picked later to fully develop its characteristics. I would like to try that again one day maybe, but now is not the time.
Steve Matthiasson’s Tendu is 69% Vermentino, 27% French Colombard, 4% Chardonnay.
It’s dirt cheap and an outstanding summer white. Comes in a one-liter bottle with crown cap. One of the best buys out there - crisp and lean without being cruelly acidic, has some notes of pear on the nose, no wood and no RS. Lovely wine.
I know you said US, but go to the Gascony wine shelf and ask for advice or try some fliers.
I made some French Colombard back in the early 1990’s. The tractor was parked nearby the vineyard ready to pull out the vines after picking. Chardonnay was planted after fumigating.
In the 70s and 80s Chalone made a French Colombard from an old vine vineyard in Calistoga. Nice and cheap.
But although I don’t know what happened to the Saviez vineyard, I assume in due time it was replanted to something more profitable.
Someone just laid down the A.F. no R.S. challenge.
Yup, Mel.
Those FCs by Chalone were quite nicely done. Weren’t those bttld under the Graf Family Vnyds label, rather than Chalone??
Tom
Yup, Adam… mostly, FC makes a singularly uninteresting wine. Only slightly better than ThompsonSeedless. But I always thought it had
some potential to make good wine as a Vini Macerati.
Tom
Tom
Gavilan was the label.
There are so many wonderful white varieties available now I don’t see any reason to plant colombard.
Thanks for the interesting posts. I did a little online research and found that in the early seventies, French Colombard was the second most planted grape by acreage in CA. (Can you guess what was first, without looking it up?) Within the next couple of decades Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon grew from “also growns” to number one and two. So I think Mel’s comment is a good one.
Question “Whatever happened to French Colombard wine ?”
Answer: Chardonnay and “too many (other) wonderful white varieties available now”.
Yup…that’s right…Gavilan was the label. I must be losing it!!
Tom
Carmenet (which per google was a Chalone property?) made a Colombard in the 80s and 90s.
Carmenet was part of the Chalone Wine Group for a while. The French Colombard from the Cyril Saviez vineyard that was originally sold under the Gavilan label was sold under the Carmenet brand after it was acquired by Chalone in the mid-1980s.
Thanks for tying it all together. I quite liked the Carmenet bottling.
Tom, that’s exactly what I did. But in combination with picking it too early, the tannins from skin contact and the higher acids, it became a little too inaccessible. But there were some really nice pear and early yellow fruit notes on nose and attack, which made me hopeful that it could performa well as a later picked wine. I think it would come into itself there. I might get back to it one day.