Yes, the French do make wine worth drinking outside Burgundy and Bordeaux. So, to introduce the uninitiated to three of France's dynamic--and untrammeled--wine regions, F&W sought the insights of three experts. Jacqueline Friedrich, the award-winning author of A Wine and Food Guide to the Loire, delves into the Loire Valley, where she lives in a farming village. Terry Theise, who imports wines from small producers in Austria, Germany and France's Champagne region, takes a busman's holiday in Alsace. And the New Jersey-based wine importer Alain Junguenet goes home to the Southern Rhône. The standard guidebooks are full of great restaurants and wineries; these are personal favorites that might otherwise be overlooked. --Jane Sigal 

Published October 1998