Grape Guide
Amigne
WhiteAmigne is a white grape native to the Valais in south-west Switzerland, and nearly all of it grows around the village of Vétroz. Traditionally vinified sweet from shrivelled berries, it also gives dry and medium-dry wines with orange zest, pear and a faintly tannic finish.
Key characteristics
- Planted on roughly 38 to 43 ha, all in the Valais, about 70% around Vétroz
- Probable grandchild of Petit Meslier, itself a Savagnin x Gouais Blanc cross
- Prone to coulure and millerandage, so yields are high but irregular
- Mid to late budding, late ripening; long, loose bunches suit late harvests
- Vétroz labels show residual sugar with one, two or three bees
Typical flavors
Major regions
Vétroz (Valais) · Sion (Valais) · Sierre (Valais) · Valais AOC
Also known as
Amigne Blanche · Grande Amigne · Grosse Amigne · Petite Amigne
Amigne is a white variety that has never left its home canton. Of the roughly forty hectares in existence, about seventy per cent stand around Vétroz, a village a few kilometres from Sion. Its identity is tied to a sweetness code: since 2005 producers in Vétroz have been obliged to show residual sugar on the label with one, two or three bees, so a buyer knows before opening the bottle whether the wine is dry, medium or sweet.
In the glass Amigne is fuller and more powerful than most Alpine whites, with firm acidity, citrus and stone-fruit aromas and an unusual trace of tannin on the finish. Dry examples show pear, linden and white pepper; wines from shrivelled grapes move towards tangerine, orange zest and dried apricot. Bottlings generally repay five to ten years in the cellar, and the best sweet versions keep a clean, long finish rather than heaviness.
The earliest record dates from 1686 and places Amigne in vineyards on the stretch of the central Valais from Sion to Sierre, a short distance up the valley from Vétroz, where it later settled and where it is now centred. Within Switzerland it is regarded as a true native of the canton, and no other region cultivates it in any meaningful quantity.
DNA work has clarified its family tree. Amigne is a probable grandchild of Petit Meslier, an almost vanished variety from Champagne and Franche-Comté, which is itself a cross of Savagnin and Gouais Blanc. A further genetic link, of the grandchild, nephew or niece, or half-sibling kind, connects it to Avanà from Piedmont. Savagnin and Gouais Blanc have both been grown locally from the 1500s onward, so Amigne's two unidentified, probably extinct parents may well have arrived from north-eastern France with them. An earlier suggestion of a close tie to Roussin of Aosta did not survive more detailed profiling.
A popular story holds that the Romans brought the vine to the Valais, built on the 'Aminea' grapes named by Cato, Pliny and Columella for southern Italy. No botanical evidence connects those plants to today's Amigne. The shared name more plausibly reflects the Latin amoenus, meaning pleasant.
Yields are high but erratic, because the vine is prone to coulure and millerandage, which leave bunches with missed or undersized berries. Budding is mid to late and ripening is late; harvest comes around three weeks after Chasselas. Bunches are long and very loose, formed of small berries, which suits late picking and the drying of fruit on the vine without rot. Flowering is delicate and the vine needs close attention through ripening. It does best on well-exposed slopes of moderate fertility; in Vétroz the soils are sandy and stony, over schist and fine rock, and the roots reach the deeper layer.
Amigne is made in three broad registers, and in Vétroz the bee system states which one. One bee means under 8 g/L residual sugar (dry), two bees 9 to 25 g/L (medium) and three bees more than 25 g/L (sweet). Medium-sweet wines make up most output today, although dry bottlings are increasingly common and show pear, citrus, linden tea and white pepper with a slightly bitter, tannic finish. The sweet wines, often called flétrie when the grapes are left to shrivel on the vine, bring orange zest, tangerine and dried apricot with a very long finish. Some qualify under the Grain Noble ConfidenCiel charter. Bottlings from Vétroz sometimes carry a Grand Cru label.
Where it grows
Vétroz
The heartland, holding about seventy per cent of all Amigne, where the variety is bottled under its own village label with the bee scale. Producers include Jean-René Germanier, Cave du Vieux-Moulin, Cave des Tilleuls, Les Ruinettes, La Madeleine and La Tine.
Sion and Sierre
The stretch of the central Valais where the first record of the variety was made in 1686. Plantings here are small and overshadowed by the concentration at Vétroz.
Valais AOC
All commercial Amigne is made in the canton, labelled either as a Vétroz wine or as Valais. Total area is about 38 to 43 hectares, well under one per cent of the Swiss vineyard.
Outside Switzerland
No significant plantings are recorded elsewhere, so every commercial bottle comes from the Valais.