I have so much information I want to share with you about my last (and long overdue because of COVID-19) visit to Jura that my head is about to explode as I sit down to pen these lines. I want to tell you all about the excitement, energy, learning, experiences, great bottles and also food and conviviality with people who don’t open up so easily to foreigners (or journalists!).
I know this is going to be a very long article, and I hope you can read it until the end without getting tired and that along the way you catch some of my enthusiasm for the region. Some of my tasting notes might be sketchy, as they are based on handwritten notes I scrawled in my notebook while standing up with a glass in my hand and tasting at the speed of light. Some of those scribbles I can hardly understand myself!
Evolution or Revolution?
My impression is that the younger people are doing more flor wines and the more traditional wineries are doing more ouillé bottlings. In other words, the two worlds seem to be converging, as I’ve seen with modern and traditional styles in other places like Barolo or Rioja, and the focus is on making better wines that reflect the place rather than just sticking to one process.
A word has to be said about the so-called “natural” wines, which is a term I dislike. The movement has been a shock to the system, like punk was to music. There are good and bad wines, and I always focus more on the result than the process. In the best hands, the fact that no sulfur is added to the wines is now irrelevant, as the wines show no flaws and come through as clean, precise and balanced, and I no longer make a distinction between those that use or don’t use sulfur as long as it’s used in the smallest doses required. A different story is the vineyard work, where, to me, there is no excuse (other than financial, which is not irrelevant!) to keep using herbicides.
However, there are still herbicides in Jura, as there are poorly made wines too. But because it’s a climatically challenging region, it’s one of the places with more producers of organic, biodynamic and no-sulfur-added wines in the world, which I find quite remarkable.
At the same time, many wines are getting cleaner and more precise than in the past, and it’s less frequent to find badly faulted wines (that was a pandemic years ago). I guess we’re all getting more accustomed to and tolerant of the style. That’s not to say that “natural” is going mainstream (some mainstream producers are jumping on the bandwagon, though…), but the style/philosophy/character is getting more integrated into the world of wine, the same way punk merged with rock and inserted its influence…
I developed an interest for Jura wines after getting hooked on Sherry through Equipo Navazos. I first wrote about them around 2010, and at the time, the (good) information about the region was very scarce. And then I found an article in the excellent US journal The Art of Eating. It explained Vin Jaune with great clarity, and I was off. I started working for Robert Parker Wine Advocate in 2013 as a reviewer of wines from Spain, Argentina and Chile. Then, in 2015, I volunteered to cover the Jura too, as if I didn’t have enough to do already! That year, I penned my first article on the region (Jura: Wines from Another Era) after a couple of visits there with a good friend who unlocked the most difficult doors for me.
This 2006 issue of The Art of Eating was the first serious writing about Jura that I read. Can you guess who’s in the brilliant cartoon on the cover? Most of them are now superstars or legends…
The region has evolved so much in these last eight years. It’s a lot more dynamic: there are many new producers, and against all odds, the wines have become really popular and trendy. I’ve followed the evolution with interest—and so has the market. Some producers have become real rock stars, and some wines are highly sought after and virtually impossible to get. Some prices have skyrocketed too… But they deserve it! It’s one of the most characterful and authentic wine regions in the world!
Last time, in the spring of 2021, my visit was very difficult due to the COVID-19 restrictions, but I was able to taste 100 wines. There’s quite a lot of information in my articles from 2019 (Adventures in the Jura) and 2017 (How Can 2,000 Hectares Make So Much Noise?), in case you want to do some more background reading. I’ve been pushed by my colleague William Kelley to go back to Jura, spend more time there and discover what’s going on, because it’s a beehive of activity. It was indeed my best visit so far. From now on, I will try to go there and cover the region every 12 months, because it’s really exciting, and information is still scattered. This one is for you, William!
The Last Few Years
The other day, someone was talking about abolishing the vintage chart, and I tend to agree with that, to an extent. I dislike vintage reports and always explain that generalizations are possibly more unfair in wine than in any other field. OK, I said it again… But anyway, there are certain weather patterns and characteristics of each given vintage that merit discussion and attention. But other than that, the point of reviewing and scoring each wine individually is exactly because generalizations are not possible. There are a million details, decisions and actions that influence the end result in the bottle. Someone can make the best wine of his or her life in an awful year or fail miserably in vintages when most people make good wine.
Mildew hits almost every year, but it was really bad in 2021.
The last cold vintage in Jura was 2016 and now also 2021. But 2021 was very challenging and yields were tiny, because of frost and hail (twice!) and a massive mildew attack. But the vintage was cooler than 2020 and 2019.
Although I had tasted a fair number (16%) of wines from 2019 last time, for this report, I tasted more wines from 2019 than any other vintage. It’s possible that, in terms of consistency, it was the finest vintage since 2016 until today. Even if it was very warm, which usually implies healthy grapes and a good crop, the wines feel quite complete, ripe and powerful but clean and balanced with freshness and elegance. Most of the wines are fresher than those from 2020, although it’s not easy to generalize; some people have the idea that the 2020s are fresher than the 2019s… Of course, it depends!
Stéphane Tissot, who usually has very good explanations for what happens in the region, reported that yields in 2021 were as low as 11 hectoliters per hectare due to frost and hail (twice!) and a massive mildew attack, but the vintage was cooler than 2020 and 2019. 2022 was very dry (and also warm), so there was more stress for the vines, while 2019, even if warm, had more rain and the vines were less stressed, and all that shows in the wines.
Now that the weather is done, let’s start with what’s new…
Cellier Saint-Benoit
Cellier Saint-Benoit has resurfaced and caught the attention of Jura aficionados with the arrival of the very young Benjamin Benoit (born 1995!), who was forced to take over the family winery after the sudden death of his father in 2019. I had a very good visit, including viewing plenty of vineyards in Pupillin and tasting from barrel and from bottle in the new and impressive cellar, which was finished in 2022 and will be used for the first time in the 2023 vintage.
After his father died in 2019, 28-year-old Benjamin Benoit took over the family winery.
Benoit is inspired by Charles Lachaux from Burgundy, with whom he worked, and has implemented many changes in the vineyards (changing the pruning to Guyot Poussard and going for higher trellises too) and in the winery. He also worked in New Zealand, and his command of the English language is great. 2021 has been the only cold vintage he has experienced so far, but the yields were catastrophic that year (he only produced 8,000 bottles in total), and 2022 was the warmest of them all. I found the 2022 wines good but not great, as they lack a bit of energy. The style is distinctly Burgundian, but this is only the beginning of his career, so I guess the wines will feel more Jura as years go by... He has around 20 different wines, many single-vineyard bottlings from very small plots, so availability for some of them, especially in a year like 2021, can be painfully low.
He has a little more than six hectares of vineyards, inherited from the family, that are gradually being converted to organic farming. The vineyards were started in his great grandfather's time, when most domaines also had cows for milk to produce Comté cheese. His father sold the grapes to the local cooperative and only started making a little bit of wine in 2002. In 2004, he left the cooperative and vinified part of the grapes and sold the rest to other domaines.
Benoit still doesn’t have many barrels, and a lot of wines are aged exclusively in stainless steel, but the number of barrels will soon grow. He uses indigenous yeasts and minimal sulfur. The new cellar must have been a very big investment, because he has a lot of new and expensive equipment, and there is attention to detail, everything is super clean and everything has the winery name and logo... He uses Zalto decanters and glasses for the tasting, something unusual in Jura.
The Hollywood-like sign in the vineyards of Pupillin
As he’s in Pupillin, the world capital of Ploussard, he has no less than six different bottlings with the finicky red grape!
Fumey Chatelain
Fumey Chatelain is another producer that is coming to the surface and attention of Jura wine lovers with the arrival of the son of Raphaël Fumey and Adeline Chatelain, Marin. Raphaël and Adeline started in the mid-1990s selling the grapes of only 0.56 hectares of vines. After the terrible frost of 1991, they decided to vinify the few grapes they could save and produced their first wine. They progressed slowly, buying their current farm and cellar in Montigny-lès-Arsures (Arbois) in 1999, and in 2020, they were joined by Marin, who had experience working in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. A new era had started.
Marin Fumey, the catalyst for change at Fumey Chatelain
Marin is a young vigneron who has travelled and has extensive international experience, along with the perspective that gives. He immediately started converting the farming to organic, looking after the vineyards, expanding them, planting new ones and getting new land to plant even more. In 2021, they bought the adjoining cellar, where Domaine du Pelican used to work, which is already connected to their property and even the one next door. They bought a substantial plot of around seven hectares of unplanted quality land that they split with Stéphane Tissot, cousin of Raphaël, and it’s their next big project.
Fumey Chatelain has 21 hectares of vineyard, mostly in Montigny-lès-Arsures.
Today, they have 21 hectares of vineyard land, 16 of them in production, and some of the rest are already planted and some will be planted in the near future. In a good vintage, like 2020, they produce 80,000 bottles, but in a challenging year like 2021, they only produced around 30,000 bottles. The split is approximately 60% white and 40% red. They should achieve organic certification for their vineyards in 2023. The approach is as hands-off as possible, using as little sulfur as possible and aging their wines in used oak. They are on their way up, increasing quality every year regardless of the year but still dependent on vintage conditions. 2020 was good and warm, with no diseases, and yields were around 45 hectoliters per hectare, while in 2021, they got very low yields, 14 hectoliters as an average, as the year was cold and wet and there were problems of mildew and botrytis. They bought a sorting table that year and produced very good wines through sorting.
The old Domaine du Pelican cellar now belongs to the Fumey Chatelain family.
I visited some of their vineyards on a very sunny June morning, toured their cellars and had an extensive tasting of their wines. I liked what I saw, and I think they have a brilliant future ahead of them. One of the new stars from Jura...
Discoveries
There are a number of new names that appear here for the first time. As I just told you, I visited Fumey Chatelain and Cellier Saint Benoit, so there’s more coverage about them. But I researched and sourced many new bottles, although I didn’t have the time to visit most of those producers. Of the bottles I sourced, the highlight surely was Julien Crinquand. I had heard his name, made inquiries and even phoned him, but I couldn't secure an appointment. I had an excellent bottle of his Chardonnay Les Rescapés at Restaurant Le Bistronôme in Arbois and managed to source another handful of bottles to taste. The wines, which share the generic name (Les) Canons du Jean, have a similar label and carry the cuvée or vineyard name, are sold without any appellation of origin, but they are as Jura as any other wine from the region.
Julien Crinquand produced an impressive first vintage in 2019.
He is one of the new kids on the block from Jura. He's very young and settled in the village of Les Arsures in 2019 after he worked with Philippe Bornard and Fabrice Dodane in Domaine Saint Pierre. He has five hectares of vineyards in Arbois that he inherited from his father and grandfather in some of the most renowned lieux-dits, Bodines, Mailloche and Verleule, whose grapes used to go to the Arbois cooperative in the past. The wines are lively and precise, a name to follow for sure, with a VERY IMPRESSIVE first vintage.
Mathieu Allante and Christian Boulanger, who work for Labet, have crafted this impressive Savagnin.
I was also quite taken with a bottle of Savagnin from Allante Boulanger (Mathieu Allante and Christian Boulanger, who work at Labet and started making wine for themselves) that I drank at Villa Mas restaurant in the Costa Brava of Spain. I later tasted another bottle at home with more time and calm, and the wine showed really well. It's an almost-secret production of very small volume, and bottles are extremely difficult to find, but I thought I should share the information anyway. Like with Nøvice, the sample was just one wine, so I definitely need to taste more next time.
There are many new names in Jura, often very small and obscure projects, and one of them is Domaine Nøvice. Yves Roy is a rookie in the wine world (hence the novice moniker). He's a native from Poligny who worked with Valentin Morell at Les Pieds sur Terre, and in 2020, he started his own project. His wines have a strong personality, produced in a natural way. I tasted the 2020 Orange Manuel at Villa Mas again, and I loved it and the label of this unusual skin-contact white. It's a savage wine with a bit of a piss-take label and name (“manual orange” in French) from the film Clockwork Orange, whose title was Orange mécanique in France. It's an “orange” wine from Savagnin, a style I don't usually like very much, because I find that when they are overdone, it erases the varietal and place character from the wines, but that's not the case here.
Orange Manuel, an unusual orange wine and label (the opposite of “Orange mécanique”) from a new project named Nøvice
It comes from a very old plot in Poligny with the Côtes du Jura appellation on marl and gryphée ("Gryphaea," in Latin, or “the Devil's toenail” in English) fossils that Roy works organically. The vines are in the process of biodynamic conversion, but so far, there is no certification on the labels. There must not have been much of the skin contact here (but the accompanying literature mentions a full three weeks, 50% whole clusters, 50% destemmed), and the wine has soul and energy; it's perfumed, peachy and floral, surprisingly elegant but with good ripeness and a moderate 13.5% alcohol. An elegant orange wine, not too phenolic and produced in a manual (Manuel!) way.
I had a couple of very impressive bottles from Kevin Bouillet, another of the new names. He's in his early thirties and has recently taken over the four hectares of family vineyards in Pupillin. He immediately moved to organic farming and started using cover crops. He has a bright future; the Melon à Queue Rouge and the Ploussard I tasted were brilliant.
The sinuous landscape of Pupillin vineyards
Zéroine is the new project from Maylis Bernard, partner of “Fanfan” Ganevat. With no background or experience in wine, she has found a new life after spending 15+ years working for a big multinational company implementing SAP R/3, one of the most popular (and painful to install!) ERP computer systems in the world! Most of the wines have a code name, as most are sold without appellation of origin, which comprises the grape or grapes used and the vintage. For example, the L21 PiRie is a cuvée of Pinot Noir and Riesling from 2021, and the L21 MonRie blends Mondeuse from Savoie and Riesling from Alsace! Crazy!
I’m sure that if I had spent a couple of months rather than just over a week there, I’d have an overwhelming list of new names and tons of interesting stories to tell you. The place is better (and more dynamic) than ever! I already have a list of more names I need to explore next time…
Nicolas Jacob
I met with Nicolas Jacob, tasted with him and we even shared dinner at the superb Autour de L'Âtre restaurant in the tiny village of Grusse in the south of the Jura wine region, very close to his cellar in Cesancey. I had only tasted a couple of wines from him before and had high expectations. But what I didn't anticipate was that I was going to end up enjoying his reds more than his whites! He had just racked the 2022s that we tasted unbottled, but he also uncorked some bottles. Later, I bought some more of his wines to taste so I could give you a more complete picture of his work.
Nicolas Jacob worked with Ganevat for three years before starting his new project in nearby Cesancey.
He worked with Jean-François Ganevat for three years before starting his new project. He's one of the new superstars from Jura, and his wines are scarce and hard to find, especially given the challenges of the last few years in the region that resulted in tiny crops. Like his mentor, he has also started a négoce, sourcing grapes from friends in other regions to complement the small production from Jura. I tasted a very surprising Riesling from Alsace, a white from Savoie and also some other trials, as he'd like to experiment with longer élevage (up to five years, he said), like a Savagnin with four weeks of skin contact, etc.
He is very careful and meticulous (he must have learned that from Ganevat), cleans everything and pays attention to detail. His reds are bottled after one year of élevage and the whites after two years or more. The profile of the wines is clean and precise, in the style of Ganevat or Fabrice Dodane from Domaine Saint Pierre.
Eat, Drink, and See
I want to give you a couple of words about the Autour de L'Âtre restaurant, because it’s well worth a visit. It’s a new haute cuisine place in Jura, opened by Parisian Gabriel Guinnebault who has experience as a sommelier and has worked in important restaurants, in places like Agapé, where he was for over five years. He moved to the south of Jura from Paris with his partner Léa Lobry, who has stated making wine in the area. Gabriel opened his restaurant a little over one year ago, in May 2022, in an old building with a nice garden, a minimalist dining room and an open kitchen where he cooks in front of you.
Chef and sommelier Gabriel Guinnebault opened the doors of one of the finest restaurants in Jura in May 2022. The name? Autour de L'Âtre, in the village of Grusse.
The restaurant is a breath of fresh air, offering a very interesting selection of wines, local and from other regions, and especially refined modern food that makes it one of the best addresses in the whole of the Jura. Surprisingly refined and elegant.
The refined dining room of Autour de L'Âtre decorated with antiques and linen tableware
The one place that was highly recommended by everyone was Le Comptoir Kokagué, a Japanese place in the village of Mouchard some 10 kilometers (or minutes by car) north of Arbois. I’m still kicking myself for not having managed to eat there, as they were closed for vacation the week I was there. But it remains at the top of my to-do list for next year…
I had often heard about some very nice cascades very close to Arbois, but I never had time to try to find them. On a lazy Sunday afternoon, I finally found my way there. I know there are many producers to visit and too many temptations in the region, but you should make an effort and visit this natural wonder at least once. I’ll show you a short video as a teaser…
It’s the Cascade des Tufs in the village of Les Planches-près-Arbois, where I also found an unusual hotel, Castel Damandre, which made me think of the film Grand Budapest Hotel (if you haven’t seen it, I don’t know what you’re waiting for!) with a worthy restaurant and some hidden gems in the wine list.
Castel Damandre hotel and restaurant in Les Planches-près-Arbois
And now that we’re talking about nice visits, restaurants and so on, I feel I should again insist on the two musts in the region. One is chocolate maker Hirsinger in Arbois, where the chocolates from this centenary family artisan are my absolute favorite (in the world!). Everything they make is to die for, including crunchy morning croissants or pain au chocolat, almond tart, small quiches and other savory bites, cakes … you name it! And now they even have an outside terrace to have a bite or an espresso with your breakfast. Bliss!
This humble door hides the best wine and cheese in the Jura: Essencia in Poligny
I have already recommended it in the past, but the cheese and wine shop Essencia in Poligny is the other address you should not miss when visiting the Jura. Owner Philippe Bouvret not only has an incredible selection of wines in his little shop by the village church but he’s also the best affineur of Comté, the local and most popular cheese in France. I’ve been teasing him to show me the cave where he matures the cheeses, but so far, I have not managed that. Hopefully next time I’ll be able to tell you all about it…
Montbourgeau, the New Star
The wines from Domaine de Montbourgeau often fly under the radar, but the small hamlet of l’Étoile can also produce some of the most elegant wines from Jura, and these are textbook examples. They have traditionally produced exclusively wines with flor (their Vin Jaune is outstanding), but the arrival of a new generation has meant they have also started with ouillé wines.
César Derieux took over Domaine de Montbourgeau from his mom, Nicole, in 2019.
Many changes are happening there, even if they have long been the leading producer in the small village appellation in Jura. César Derieux took over from his mom, Nicole, with the 2019 vintage (he arrived in 2017) and has started transforming the 10 hectares of vineyards to organic farming, for which he’s hoping to get certification in 2026. They are producing more terroir wines from specific vineyards and more ouillé (without flor), even experimenting with skin contact. He uses a little sulfur during fermentation, but nothing else is added afterwards, not even at bottling time.
The new Montbourgeau cellar
They are now also giving the final touches to their new cuverie, a fermentation cellar to complement the old aging cellars, perfect for the maturation of the wines, but they only had a tiny space for the vinification. All these changes should have an impact on the quality of the wines. Furthermore, César seems to be mingling more with the young winemakers from the region, which is the way to go…
The beautiful landscape of l’Étoile
Aviet, Au Revoir to Bacchus
Lucien “Bacchus” Aviet, one of the old-timers from Jura, born in 1937, contemporary and school friend of Pierre Overnoy, passed away from cancer in May 2021. His son Vincent is at the steering wheel at Lucien Aviet et Fils - Caveau de Bacchus, the official name of the winery, now together with his 24-year-old son, Maxence, who has already started working in the family business.
Tasting at Aviet’s cellar with Alice, ex-wife of Vincent
This time I tasted with Alice, Vincent’s ex-wife who continues working at the domaine handling the administration, as Vincent was working in the vineyards non-stop during one of the most challenging weeks of the year when I was there. They are somewhat of experts in Trousseau, as they are in Montigny-les-Arsures, one of the best terroirs for the grape in Jura, world capital of Trousseau, as it says on the fountain in the main square of the village. They have five hectares of vineyards and only produce some 18,000 to 20,000 bottles of wines that remain one of the best-kept secrets from Jura.
Homage to Lucien Aviet (1937–2021)
They continue with the traditional style, whites in un-topped-up barrels and foudres with the influence of the veil of yeasts, terroir reds from Trousseau and one of the best Vin Jaunes money can buy. As I’ve seen at many other addresses, the generational change has meant they have started thinking about ouillé wines, perhaps more so after the success of the almost-accidental l’Etrange Savagnin from 2012 that took seven years to ferment in a 5,000-liter oval oak vat, but as it was protected by CO2, it only developed a thin veil of yeast in the end and never went through malolactic… It’s halfway there between traditional and ouillé, taking the best from both worlds.
Domaine Macle, Yellow Magic
Laurent Macle is the sixth generation in the family business in the tiny and picturesque village of Château Chalon. His father, Jean, who passed away in 2021 at the age of 87, had grown the business from 1.5 hectares of vines and a bunch of cows to produce milk for Comté cheese, the traditional polyculture in the zone, to the top of the Vin Jaune hierarchy, cultivating eight hectares in Côtes-du-Jura and four in Château Chalon.
No Jura article would be complete without a photo of Château Chalon, one of the most beautiful villages in France, taken from the belvedere.
Château Chalon is the most famous appellation for the specialty yellow wine raised under a veil of yeasts, what in Jerez is called flor, a biologically aged wine, despite being called oxydatif locally. Their Château Chalon labels read Vin de Garde, wine to keep, and one often wonders how long you should keep it. Well, the problem is not how long they can last, because most of us will go down the hill before the wines do; the question is more “when can I open them?” Macle’s rule of thumb for Vin Jaune is that it has to age six years in barrel plus another six years in bottle before drinking it, which I thought was pretty good and made sense.
Laurent Macle is the sixth generation at Domaine Macle.
Laurent arrived at the family domaine in 1990, worked with his father until 2003, when they only produced flor-aged wines, and took over from there, producing his first ouillé Chardonnay in 2005. He triggered the conversion to organic in 2015, with the first certified wine from 2019. Despite being one of the most traditional wineries in Jura, Domaine Macle doesn't stop or rest on its laurels. Laurent's daughter, Carmen, is finishing her studies, currently doing the harvest in New Zealand, and she will join the domaine soon.
They continue experimenting with more ouillé wines without veil, one barrel of Savagnin per year, which I tasted but they don’t sell it, and there are also undisclosed quantities of wines without added sulfur and even some amphora wines. For now, those experiments are not bottled commercially. Unfortunately, they had run out of the Château Chalon from 2014 when I visited them, so I couldn't taste it.
The atmospheric cellars of Domaine Macle, where time is the secret
Laurent is a gentle, soft-spoken and shy person, but once he opens up, he is really affable. Through the years, I have developed a great admiration for his work. He's had to survive working with very strong characters, his father and his daughter (born in 1965, the same vintage as me!), who is still bossing him around at any opportunity. I was in Jura for a weekend for the first time, and I had time off on the Sunday to do some touristy stuff, which is rare. I didn't want to bother any producer, but I asked Laurent what was the best place to have Sunday lunch in Château Chalon, because it's a beautiful place and I wanted to wander around the streets without having to worry about my next appointment.
Château Chalon spreads over 50 hectares of vineyards, as only those planted with Savagnin are entitled to the appellation.
So, he recommended a place but also said, "Sunday is Mother's Day in France, and we have a family lunch, but do come over for an aperitif." And so I did. I spent a good couple of hours with him and his wife in the garden and drank some of his sparkling crémant, which for some reason he never shows to me and is in fact very good... We soon moved on to Champagne as we talked about life, cinema, art and whatever, anything and everything except wine or business. It was very relaxed and very nice to meet a producer that I love so much in such an environment and to spend time to get to know him better as a person, not only as a grape grower and winemaker.
A couple of days later, I was back on my official mission ... to taste! As usual, he was kind enough to uncork a few old bottles to follow their evolution, pouring them blind and making me guess the vintage (it's a game, sometimes I'm close and other times I'm very far off...), which is fascinating, as the wines age for much longer and more graciously than we imagine. Even the Côtes du Jura at close to 40 years of age was stunning...
Ganevat
I also had a superb tasting chez Ganevat, as Jean-François "Fanfan" Ganevat was inspired and more talkative than ever. He showed me a bunch of Vignes de Mon Père still in foudre and a now very good négoce range (still unbottled 2022s) that I'll try to taste in bottle and provide detailed notes next time. The finest domaine reds are also those from 2022. Part of this might be because of the new addition to the team, young Jocelyn Broncard, who arrived just before the sale of the estate in September 2021 and who first vinified the 2021s. The idea was to prepare the transition, as Ganevat’s intention was to stay for three to five years after the sale and he wanted someone that wouldn’t change the style of the wines.
The dream team: Jean-François “Fanfan” Ganevat (left) and Jocelyn Broncard
Broncard studied and worked in Spain 20 years ago (at Celler del Roure in Valencia!) and then spent two or three years working in different countries in South America, so he speaks perfect Spanish! He was the technical director of the Jura wine laboratory for 10 years, and he seems to bring the precision that greatly complements the wild energy and genius ideas of Ganevat. I don’t think the style has changed; on the contrary, I see that the style has been given continuity and even more precision, especially in the reds and the négoce bottlings.
Zéroine is the new project of Ganevat’s partner, Maylis Bernard.
"Fanfan" Ganevat is also advising the sister project Prieuré Saint Jean de Bébian in the south of France. I'll try to dig more information about the consultation work next time. And his partner, Maylis Bernard (who has a similar IT and business background as yours truly, implementing SAP in large multinational companies!), has started something called Zéroine, which has a great resemblance to Ganevat's négoce wines, blending grapes from different regions in France. There is a Zéroine wine in this report.
After the sale, the domaine was recently handed over to a team lead by Benoît Pontenier, the director of the Languedoc estate Prieuré Saint Jean de Bébian, and other stakeholders, including the Ganevats and their cellarmaster, Jocelyn Broncard. The future seems bright and in good hands.
The Vignes de Mon Père Effect
During my days in Jura, a handful of people told me they were experimenting with long élevage of ouillé (topped up) Savagnin, what I called the Les Vignes de Mon Père effect after the commercial success of Ganevat’s Savagnin aged for 11 years in topped-up 600-liter barrels, which, to me, is one of the greatest white wines in the world.
Tasting unplugged at Ganevat
Ganevat really outdid himself and showed me no less than seven vintages of the wine in barrel, which gave me a fascinating understanding and insight of this wine that has blown my brain since the first time I had the chance to drink it. Last time, he showed me the 2016 from barrel, and he puzzled me by telling me that it was a wine from a completely different vineyard of the Marnes Bleues, which was not my understanding.
This time, I was able to clarify that point, and he explained how the first few vintages of Les Vignes de Mon Père (until 2006 included) were really a barrel selection from Marnes Bleues. But after that, he was able to buy back a vineyard that had belonged to his family for a long time but was in the hands of a cousin of his father (or something like that). The lieu-dit in question is called Le Champ Bernard, and when they attempted to do a classification of the Jura vineyards a long time ago, it was the only one considered grand cru quality in the whole of the southern Jura. That classification was never made official, but people knew this was the best site. And Ganevat never forgot…
Les Vignes de Mon Père, the wine that changed the landscape of ouillé Savagnin
So, he managed to get the vineyard back and started producing Les Vignes de Mon Père from there in the 2007 vintage. So, from 2007 onward, Les Vignes de Mon Père is from Le Champ Bernard Vineyard, while all vintages from 2006 and older are simply barrel selections from Marnes Bleues.
I sampled the unbottled wines from barrel from 2010, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2019, all the wines that could potentially be bottled as Les Vignes de Mon Père from those years, all from foudres that are very meticulously being topped up and kept without the addition of any sulfur. 2010 and 2012 really blew me away, and the 2010 should be bottled very soon, so those are two to really look forward to in the near future. It feels like the special kind of marl they call schiste carton (cardboard shale), which is the soil in the Le Champ Bernard lieu-dit, delivered a wine with a special character and high quality, fulfilling its reputation. And Ganevat is making it a legend today…
Schiste carton, the marl soil of the Champ Bernard Vineyard, the source of the magical Les Vignes de Mon Père
Furthermore, the wine and its success are inspiring others and pushing many to find the limits of élevage, basically to know until when do ouillé whites from Savagnin benefit from being aged in neutral oak foudres. Ganevat himself has already extended the aging of all his domaine whites to four years (the 2018s are being released now, and the 2019s were still unbottled), and he is experimenting with other wines to make a long élevage, some of which I was able to taste with him this time.
Sous Roche of Château Chalon
Stéphane Tissot was also talking about time being the secret (but time is money!), trying to keep all the whites for a longer time in barrel, foudre or amphora before being bottled and keeping some lots for a much longer time as he tries to find the limits of ouillé aging. François Rousset-Martin was also talking in similar terms and trying to experiment with some extended élevage of certain wines or small lots.
The Cuvée du Professeur from Rousset-Martin’s vineyards from his father (the teacher) might turn into another long-élevage Savagnin.
Rousset-Martin is keeping the equivalent of 2,000 bottles of the amazing 2019 Savagnin Cuvée du Professeur from the Sous Roche lieu-dit from Château Chalon to continue aging the wine (ouillé), hopefully for eight to 10 years. I’m sure others are also inspired by Ganevat and Les Vignes de Mon Père, but few have the financial conditions to age a wine for 11 years in the cellar. I wonder if people in other regions might also be inspired to try this … other than López de Heredia in Rioja!
Kenjiro Kagami, the “Small Japanese”
Getting an appointment with Kenjiro Kagami in his tiny cellar in Grusse in the south of Jura is not an easy task. I pulled many strings and finally managed it, but he pleaded, "Please, come at the end of the day, as I have a lot of work in the vineyards. Come at 18:00." He's a protégé of Jean-François Ganevat, with whom I had an appointment just prior to Kenjiro's. Ganevat was in a very good mood, and after we finished a very long and inspiring tasting (transcribing those 35 notes took nearly as long as tasting the wines on site!), he still wanted to show me some more wines and introduce me to his new partner. So, he said, "Let's go and have dinner!” "But I have an appointment with Kenjiro," I said. "OK, let's all go to see Kenji. Jocelyn (Ganevat's new winemaker) has never been to his cellar. Let's go and taste together and then we have dinner..."
Tasting at Domaine des Miroirs with Kenjiro Kagami and Jean-François “Fanfan” Ganevat
So, we arrived there a little late (I hate being late and even more so to an appointment with a Japanese person!), but Kenjiro didn't expect me to arrive with Fanfan and Jocelyn and was surprised. As always, he was soft-spoken and shy, so he started by asking me, "Are you here on an official mission? Because I don't want to appear anywhere." To which Ganevat replied, “Kenjiro, if Luis writes about you, it would be good for the Jura and other vignerons in our region. You HAVE to do it!" So, that was that. We tasted from barrel, and he uncorked a few bottles too. After we were done, Ganevat tried to convince him to come have dinner with us, to which he replied, "No, Fanfan, not tonight, please. I'm super tired, and I have to get up really early tomorrow... If I come with you tonight, it will cost me a divorce." We all laughed. But he said, "OK, next year I'll come to dinner with you!," which I considered a triumph, as he assumes there will be a visit next year and he will even come have dinner with us.
“Look at this adorable small Japanese!,” exclaimed Ganevat.
His 2021s are scarce (all his wines are; the majority are sold in France and less than 30% go to Japan), but they're high quality, with very good freshness, acidity and precision. The whites will be given an élevage of three years, also progressively going for longer time in barrel, a general trend I discussed a few paragraphs before.
Pierre Overnoy, the Pope of Jura
Tasting chez Overnoy is akin to attending a UN meeting; you think you have your own appointment, but given the high demand for (international) visits they have, they group together the selected visitors on a given date. So, when you arrive there, you see people from different nationalities hanging around Pierre’s house…
Pierre Overnoy, showing his original French driving license (which is never renewed) with his birth date in 1937 (photo courtesy of Estanis Nuñez)
In the house, I tasted the wines served blind by Emanuel Houillon; this time, Pierre Overnoy didn't show up. I saw him a couple of days later, and he seemed pretty crooked and slow, pretty aged, but still active, watering the plants and patting the dog. The day we tasted, Houillon’s wife Anne and one of their sons kept coming and going from the room.
There were some 14 people around the table discussing farming, winemaking and the wines, which is always interesting, as the audience included some of the leading new winemakers in Jura (Nicolas Jacob, César Derieux...), but as usual, I only knew half of the people around the table... I also had the opportunity to spend more time with Manu and his family during dinner and breakfast before I left the Jura. Those tasting notes were complemented with wines I drank along the way, at Villa Mas in Costa Brava and La Dilettante in Beaune.
The wines are as good as ever, with that incredible texture, depth and complexity, and they are increasing the range, with a new cuvée of Ploussard and Trousseau and a truly oxidative rare bottling with gray wax that was apparently produced in the past but I encountered now for the first time. So far, there's no new Vin Jaune, but I know that the 2002 and 2004 have already been bottled. But when (and if) those are released, as they are scared by the speculation with that wine, is another story...
Savagnin has also been scarce in recent years, and as far as I know, there's no new release of the ouillé Savagnin bottling, which is identified by its yellow wax seal. Some of the notes here are merely academic, a very rough sketch of what the eventual bottled wines could be (imagine a 2020 Vin Jaune when the last released was the 2000...). It's more a matter of providing information about them than giving them a hypothetical score...
The Wax Guide to Overnoy’s Bottlings
People are sometimes confused with Overnoy’s wines. All the labels (except the Vin Jaune) are the same and don’t mention variety or élevage (though the newer ones show bottling dates), so the guide to these wines is just the color of the hard wax used to seal the bottles. This is a short guide to them.
More recent Overnoy bottlings show the bottling date on the label.
Yellow is always used for Savagnin, which could be ouillé (regular bottle), vieux Savagnin with extended élevage in oak and bottled in half-liter bottles, or the (rarer by the minute) Vin Jaune, bottled in 62-centiliter Clavelin bottles (as that’s mandatory).
White is for Chardonnay, only ouillé.
Green is for the blend of Chardonnay/Savagnin, which seems to be more frequent in the last few years.
Gray is for a rare (released only a couple of times?) skin-contact white with nine+ years of élevage.
A half-liter bottle with yellow wax for the vieux Savagnin ouillé (left), green is for a (more frequent?) blend of Chardonnay and Savagnin (middle), and gray is for a rare skin-contact white with nine+ years of élevage à la Sherry (right).
Red has always been used for the Ploussard, which was until recently the only red from the flagship grape from their village. The new Ploussard and Trousseau cuvée (first vintage 2018) that includes the Trousseau grapes from young vines they planted has a purple wax seal. But to make things more confusing, they ran out of this color when sealing the second batch of this wine, so they used the red one (the one used for the pure Ploussard) and just stamped Ploussard/Trousseau across the label!
Fossils and Rocks
The Jura has fascinating geology, best explained by Stéphane Tissot, and a diversity of soils that might make any Burgundian pale with envy. It’s due to the fact that the terrain was elevated by the clash of the different tectonic plates, and therefore soils from different eras emerged in different places in a complex combination of marl of different colors, clay and limestone. The main types of soils are from the Triassic period, the Pangaea era of the first dinosaurs when all land was joined together as one great landmass, estimated to be 252 to 201 million years ago, and the younger Liassic period between 200 to 180 million years ago, an era of plenty of fossils. Marl is a type of soil created mostly during those periods, and it contains different amounts of limestone, clay, silt and other elements that give it different colors, gray, blue, red… There’s even a special kind of marl they call schiste carton that looks like laminated cardboard!
Left: gray marl, or marnes grises; right: a bounty of rocks and fossils
The soils from those eras have the names Trias and Lias, and everyone talks about them all of the time. You might hear other names, Bajocien (Bajocian in English), which is a stage of the Middle Jurassic period that lasted about two million years, from between approximately 170 and 168 million years ago, and Kimméridgien (Kimmeridgian in English), which is an age in the Late Jurassic Epoch that occurred between approximately 154 and 149 million years ago, when lots of limestone was formed.
If we want to make wild generalizations, limestone soils are better for Burgundian grapes, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, and provide the salty, tasty or umami character in the wines. The Jura grapes, especially Savagnin, thrive in the Lias and Trias soils that give more Jura character to the wine. As I said, if making generalizations, the character of the Lias soils is more citrusy and the Trias is a touch more rustic.
Stéphane Tissot: Lias or Trias?
The most common fossils from the Trias are the Gryphées, or "Gryphaea" in English (with a fun common name, “the Devil's toenail”), an extinct marine oyster (extinct some 34 million years ago) that is ubiquitous in its fossil form in the soils from Jura. The name is sometimes mentioned on labels, Ganevat and Domaine de la Tournelle have wines named after them, and there is even a Domaine Les Gryphées in Beaujolais.
Another fascinating thing in the Jura soils are the pentacrines, the tiny star-shaped fossils that, contrary to what one might think, are not sea stars. They are bones of a disappeared creature called Pentacrinus (or Pentacrinites), the cross-section of whose bones were all in the shape of a five-pointed star. They are most common in the village of l’Étoile (quite appropriately!), but this time I found one in one of the Pupillin vineyards of Cellier Saint-Benoit, to the amazement of Benjamin Benoit. I don’t need to tell you that my house is full of marl, limestone and fossils, do I?
Left: the Montigny vineyards, the stage of our running tour with Stéphane Tissot; right: Stéphane Tissot pointing at his super high-density plot
Tissot Fun!
The visit with hyperactive Stéphane Tissot is always one of the most interesting, fun and informative events during my visits to the Jura. It often involves a running tour of the vineyards, a very complete explanation of the Jura geology (I shall video him one of these years) and a barrel tasting through the maze of cellars in Montigny as I follow him glass in hand, trying to keep up with his speed and scribbling unreadable stuff in my notebook.
We always finish with a long sit-down tasting in their tasting room, where he doesn't want me to use a computer or to have any network connection because he doesn't want technology to disturb the wines. There’s always a final sprint to be able to catch up on my next appointment (no matter how much time I allocate to him!), often nibbling on some Comté cheese and charcuterie to recharge the batteries (I'm exhausted after him. And I don't want to reveal who was my following appointment!) as I give my final sniff to a complete flight of terroir Vin Jaune that I would have loved to follow for a week rather than at the end of a six-hour marathon... But that's what tasting with Tissot is, above all, a lot of FUN!
Trying to transcribe later on what I wrote on paper is NOT so much fun! But there you go... Some of the words, written standing up as I am getting wine into my glass from his pipette and following his rather detailed explanations in Franglais, are frankly illegible, and sometimes I find myself scratching my head… I don’t even have time to take photographs of labels, writing on foudres or whatever that can complement my notes, which is an aid I use in other places. Here, we move faster than the speed of light!
He is, of course, one of the ideologists and visionaries, mentor and inspiration to a whole generation of new growers in Jura. He’s been organic and biodynamic from almost before the process was given a name, and he tries to translate the terroir from each of his vineyards into the bottle in front of you with a contagious energy and joy. You can only love Stéphane Tissot and maybe also his wines…
La Tour de Curon is the source of Tissot’s finest ouillé Chardonnay.
Rousset-Martin, a Rising Star
I had an amazing second visit with François Rousset-Martin, my last appointment in the region, in his new house in the village of Nevy-sur-Seille, where he plans to build his new winery, as his wines are still scattered among various small cellars, including his grandparents’ house. He studied in Burgundy with people like Jorge Monzón Pascual from Dominio del Águila in Ribera del Duero, Maxime Graillot (Crozes-Hermitage) and Alice Bouvot from l’Octavin (Jura), so he was used to ouillé wines and vinification by terroir, at the time something rare in Jura but nowadays a lot more common. He started in 2007 when part of the crop was still going to the cooperative, and it wasn’t until 2018 that he vinified all his grapes.
François Rousset-Martin
He's one of the rising stars from Jura and rightly so, as he's producing incredible wines from an enviable collection of vineyards. He has a total of 10 hectares, one hectare of red, 50% Poulsard and 50% Pinot Noir, two hectares of Chardonnay and a whopping seven hectares of Savagnin, most of them entitled to the appellation Château Chalon (Nevy-sur-Seille is within the appellation) even though he makes mostly ouillé wines and therefore not Château Chalon. He only produces around 1,500 bottles, which are mostly aged for 10 years or more.
All the vineyards have been organically farmed since he started, but he has given up the certification. He has not used any sulfur since 2015, but the wines are very clean, expressive and precise. 2021 was catastrophic for him, as for most people in Jura; he lost 90% of the crop and only produced a total of 1,100 liters of wine. The red (an almost-private wine) was destemmed and given a short maceration and élevage in tank, and the whites will be aged for longer. It was a horrible year, but the quality is very good, and he likes the reds even better than the whites...
Rousset-Martin's cellar in the village of Nevy-sur-Seille has more humidity than I’ve ever seen in my life!
While at the winery, I bumped into Arnaud Tronche, an old friend who used to run Racines, my favorite wine bar in NY that is now renamed Chambers and run by Pascaline Lepeltier. He is now the manager of Caves Legrand, one of the oldest and most traditional wine shops in Paris and a distributor of Rousset-Martin’s wines, and he was there to taste with part of his young team. We didn’t taste any flor wines, but we went down to one of the wettest cellars I’ve ever seen, where the mold looks like it’s going to eat you. While in that humid (and somewhat creepy) cellar with barrels, walls and everything covered in mold, Rousset-Martin uncorked a wine (in a Jura bottle) from his “personal reserve” that he never sold, and it was superb. While we were hemming and hawing trying to say something sensible about the wine, François kneeled and shuffled some (moldy, did I say moldy?) bottles until he found what he was looking for.
A beautiful mouth-blown Clavelin bottle that contained a 1949 Château Chalon from the Rousset-Martin family
What he unearthed and uncorked was an old Clavelin bottle (which was unmistakable), and he poured an intense, spicy wine into our glasses. So, what vintage was it? Well, because of the bottle, it was clearly a Château Chalon, and by the looks of it, it was old. “Eighties!” “Seventies!,” some ventured… “1949!,” proclaimed Rousset-Martin, full of joy. “This was a wine from my grandfather that was bottled into a mouth-blown Clavelin bottle.” It remains one of the finest Vin Jaune I’ve ever tasted and for sure the most beautiful Clavelin I’ve ever seen. After that, I got a lift to Lyon airport and flew back home to Madrid. What finale could be better for my trip to Jura?
Before, I was in love with the region and with many of its wines and producers; now I’m MADLY in love with them! Jura is better (and more dynamic) than ever! I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a wine trip more than this last one to Jura…
Luis Gutiérrez comes from an IT background with over two decades of experience working for a large multinational company in Madrid, sharing his free time between his family and wine. He lives in the Spanish capital with his family.
He's a founding member of elmundovino.com, the dean and most prestigious wine website published in Spanish, where he has written and tasted since its creation in the year 2000. He also writes for other publications belonging to the El Mundo newspaper in Spain as well as contributing to different wine and gastronomy publications in Spain, Portugal, Puerto Rico and the UK. Awarded the title Cavaleiro da Confraria do Vinho do Porto in 2004, Port and Douro are some of his favorite regions and wines, as he writes about what is happening in the wine world in Spain and Portugal, with occasional articles on Burgundy, Rhône, German Riesling, Champagne or other classic regions in Europe. He writes locally about foreign wines, and abroad mainly about Spanish wines.
Luis contributed to most of the Spanish entries for the 2008 book 1001 Wines You Must Try Before You Die 9 (in some countries, 1001 Wines You Must Taste Before you Die). He is also one of the co-authors of The Finest Wines of Rioja and Northwest Spain published in 2011 in the UK and US and in 2012 in Japan, which won the 2011 André Simon Special Commendation Award in London.
He's been the Spanish specialist correspondent for Jancisrobinson.com since May 2011 and received the Spanish National Gastronomy Award for journalism in November 2012 from the Spanish Minister for Tourism.
More than anything, he enjoys learning about wine, the wine people, and places, traveling, tasting, reading, writing, eating, and drinking and especially sharing great food and great bottles with friends whenever there's a good excuse for it!
Luis joined The Wine Advocate in 2013 as the reviewer for the wines from Spain, Argentina and Chile, and in late 2015, he took charge of reviewing wines from the tiny Jura in France.
His first major book, Los Nuevos Viñadores, covering all the major regions from Spain, its vineyards, landscapes and gastronomy, was published in Spain in the first half of 2017 by Planeta, the largest Spanish-language publisher in the world. Later that year, the book was launched in English under the name The New Vignerons, and in 2023, it was translated to Mandarin and launched in China. The book has sold more than 15,000 copies worldwide.
In 2022, he contributed to the book Calicata, Gredos como Terroir, a collective work with people like Josep Roca, Pedro Parra and Dani Landi.
In 2024, Luis expanded his coverage to include reviewing the wines from Portugal, a country that is close to his heart, while giving up his responsibilities over Argentina and Chile.
