The winter tartiflette tradition

Today, we’re not really doing the healthy thing, but rather making your mouth water by talking about… tartiflette! This comforting dish based on potatoes (a little), reblochon cheese (a lot), bacon and onions and white wine (to your liking, but always in moderation), is one of France’s favorite winter dishes.

The Savoyards are particularly proud of it, as the dish originated in the region. Tartiflette as we know it today is a variant of péla (“frying pan” in local dialect). What has changed in concrete terms? We no longer use a frying pan but an oven, and now we add white wine! Hence the name change, tartiflette coming from tartifla (“potato” in Savoyard).

While the traditional tartiflette is partly regulated by the specifications of the Reblochon de Savoie PDO, there are also many mountain variants: Munstiflette (with Munster cheese), Tartifourme (with Fourme Montbrison cheese)… You may also be familiar with the latest addition, dating from 1968, which has become the star of your Sunday evenings on the slopes: Croziflette (with Crozets, a type of local square buckwheat pasta), from Les Allues in Savoie?

Red or white?

As mentioned above, one of the key ingredients in tartiflette is white wine, which is added just before the Reblochon cheese. Some suggest you accompany your tartiflette with the same Savoy white wine, often made from the Jacquère grape. This grape adds acidity and freshness to the recipe, to counterbalance the cream and cheese.

But here, as so often, there are two schools of thought! On the one hand: the purists, who will tell you that cheese dishes are always accompanied by white wine. On the other: the epicureans, for whom nothing beats a red wine as soon as a dish contains a little meat. So as not to let a piece of perfumed bacon invade your mouth and crush the shy Jacquère, we advise you instead to innovate and go for a red!

The best red wines with tartiflette

Red yes, but which type? There is a huge variety of red wines in France alone. Once again, if you want to honor the dish and choose your wine to create a harmonious match, choose a light red. For example, a Beaujolais wine made from AOC Morgon Gamay grapes will provide a fine balance of crisp red fruit and a modicum of character to support such an opulent dish. An AOC Alsace Pinot Noir would also do the job nicely!

But of course, our preference is for the local pairing: not only does it offer real harmony on the palate, it also showcases the work of the region’s winemakers. The obvious: an AOC Savoie wine. Mostly made from Gamay and/or Mondeuse grapes, Savoy wines, often overlooked, offer a most interesting range of aromas: strawberry, blackcurrant, then violet or spices with a little aeration… All you have to do is test and approve!