2017 Chateau de Tracy Pouilly-Fumé
As our December Winophiles Saturday quickly approached, I decided that the 2017 Chateau de Tracy Pouilly-Fumé would provide a good opportunity to get in the holiday spirit.

Pouilly-Fumé is a French white wine made from Sauvignon Blanc grapes in a designated area of the Loire region. Because it sounds similar to Pouilly-Fuissé, people can get a bit confused about these two wines. I’ve got a popular post breaking down both wines along with a bunch of food pairing suggestions for each. The quick explainer if you don’t have a chance to click through–Pouilly-Fuissé is an appellation in Burgundy, where the white wine is made from Chardonnay grapes.

Although I suggest several good food pairings for Pouilly-Fumé in that earlier post, I hadn’t covered any pesto pairings there, even though pesto and Sauvignon Blanc is a classic pairing. So I decided to build our Pouilly-Fumé pairing evening around a batch of kale pesto. Kale pesto is a great option for pesto lovers in the colder weather, when it’s hard to get a good quantity of fresh basil. Not to mention you pack in some more nutrition!
I started by making a batch of kale pesto crostini. Once you have the kale pesto made, it’s so easy to make these. Just toast thin slices of baguette with a bit of oil spray (see, a baguette, French style!) and then top with a smear of the pesto. This Kale Pesto Crostini post has the pesto recipe along with more details on the process.
The kale pesto crostini get
I rounded out the festive holiday platter with a few olives and slices of leftover ham with some good quality mustard. When I was doing that other post with pairings for Pouilly-Fumé, someone had mentioned Tandoori Chicken as a pairing. That got the idea of Indian food on my mind, so I also baked some vegetable samosas to add to the pairing options.
The Chateau de Tracy Pouilly-Fumé has petrol on the nose. Grapefruit and slate on the palate, with a bit of kiwi on the long finish.
As expected, the Pouilly-Fumé was very good paired with the kale pesto crostini. The surprise hit of the pairing was how good the Pouilly-Fumé was with the leftover ham and mustard. The crisp white wine cleansed the palate nicely after the salty ham and strong mustard flavors.
The Pouilly-Fumé was also pretty good paired with the vegetable samosas. Will have to keep that in mind for future Indian meals–particularly ones that are lower on the spice scale.
Don’t scroll onto the next wine yet! We still have a couple more pairings for Pouilly-Fumé resulting from our sampling (shown at the top of this section). After the platter of appetizers, I cooked up some Simple Pan Seared Scallops, which I served along with some orzo tossed with kale pesto and white beans.
Shellfish is a natural pairing for Pouilly-Fumé, given the minerality of the wine. So it’s no surprise that the scallops and Pouilly-Fumé worked well together. And once again, the wine matched the pesto, this time tossed with pasta.