Fume Blanc? Any idea what it is exactly? I didn’t until just a few years ago. In a nutshell, Fume Blanc is a marketing term conceived of and utilized by the late great Robert Mondavi to sell a rather fine batch of Sauvignon Blanc, a grape much maligned in the United States until the 1970′s. Despite the fact that wine lovers had been buying and loving Loire Valley Pouilly Fume for decades (made from the exact same varietal) attempts to successfully market and sell this particular grape had fallen flat. A clever play on Sauvignon Blanc and Pouilly Fume, this “new” wine, Fume Blanc, was an immediate hit in the wine world and Mr. Mondavi had a home run with his first bottling, way back in 1968!
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