Ayse

If you drive through the Northern Savoie to go from Annecy to Chamonix on the autoroute blanche, at the Bonneville interchange you will see in the hills on your left a beautiful rug of vineyards that climbs up the slope of a mountain called Le Môle. This vineyard is six centuries old. It extended to its maximum at the end of the last century and has been regressing seriously ever since. But the present owners and growers are so attached to it that they have sworn to keep producing. The grapes used in Ayse and two other villages, Marignier and La Côte d’Hyot, are the Roussette d’Ayse for 70 percent of the volume and the Gringet for the remaining 30 percent, the Gringet being a very close relative of the Alsatian Traminer.