Jura’s Prudence & Savoie-Faire

Perversely traditional - not just me - but the wines of the Jura (especially) and Savoie.

“Jagged in a velvet-smooth universe” – (Eric Asimov)

The Jura defies many expectations, nowhere more so than in its wines. It is an ancient wine culture and the wines are still made with little regard for fashion. (Thank goodness!) The leading whites have nutty, sherry-like aromas that many people regard as hopelessly oxidized, but they are actually tangy, complex, pure and delicious. The best reds barely have enough colour to be called red. They are delicate and graceful, yet with an earthy intensity that can stand up to the smelliest of cheeses. Almost singularly among wine regions, the reds are usually served before the whites in the Jura because they are lighter in texture.

Most of the growers that we deal with in this region work naturally and organically; the results of their endeavours are evident and permeate the texture and flavours of the wines. These are (often unremittingly) angular wines, stilettos in a world of blunt clubs, but even more than the taste, which I personally go a bundle on, is the sensation from the moment you survey the onion-skin-hued wine in the glass and put it gingerly to your nose, that these are ancient wines made according to traditional recipes, wherein the hardy vines have scoured a meagre living amongst the rubble and detritus left by retreating glaciers.

It is the absence of the wine in the reds that makes them so enchanting and yields an ethereal quality that makes me return to them over and again. They have a beautiful translucent quality, as well as the most delicate minerality and a piercing freshness that denotes purity.

PLOUSSARD WITH NOWT TAKEN OUT
We begin with Emmanuel Houillon who is based in Pupillin, a small village just north of Arbois and self-proclaimed “World Capital of Ploussard”- indeed Houillon’s winery is on the Rue Ploussard! It was Emmanuel’s mentor, vigneron Pierre Overnoy, who originally established the unyielding purist precept that wines should be made without the addition of sulphur. Pierre’s father originally made zero-sulphur wine, but Pierre, who did his internship in Burgundy, experimented with it, until tasting the difference between his father’s wines and his own convinced him that the zero-sulphur wine had a finer aroma.

All the work done in the vineyard and in the winery has several firm objectives in mind, namely to seek out and realise the following qualities: typicity, purity and the capacity to age.

The vines are spaced closely together to compel the roots to plunge deeply into the soil for nourishment and to draw out fine mineral aromas. Moreover, the quantity of grapes on each vine is less important than that which gives the greatest concentration of natural elements. Houillon turns the top six inches of soil, cutting the surface roots and thus depriving the plants of the topsoil’s potassium which otherwise combines with tartaric acid and lowers their acidity.

No chemical herbicides are used as they would kill the indigenous yeasts and disequilibrium of the yeast population would no longer allow fermentation without the use of sulphur dioxide. By ensuring the maximum health of the vines, the diversity of yeast strains is preserved. Sulphur dioxide may kill those yeasts judged undesirable by the modern oenologist, but these yeasts carry a great aromatic and flavour complexity that is of paramount importance for the elaboration of a great wine.

Industrial yeasts provide security to the vigneron during fermentation. Houillon and Overnoy have chosen to let nature be their winemaker and accepted the difficulties and risks that that entails thus preferring the best expression of a variety and a terroir over the security of modern technology and the consequent standardisation of the product.

No chemicals are used whatsoever in the wines, both during the fermentation and during the bottling (including SO2 which is also a preservative). The wine is then transported in good condition and stored in a cool cellar, that is to say 6/8 degrees in winter and 12/14 in summer.

The fermentation uses an important population of indigenous yeasts; after their work they « die in good health » and decompose (an autolytic process which gives the nourishment that the wine needs for a long ageing. Before bottling the wine is unfiltered in order to leave all the material present; it would be a pity to give so much and then to strip it away.

No new oak barrels influence the taste – some of the barrels in use are a century old. Before bottling, the wines are neither filtered nor fined and they retain a lot of CO2, which has an antioxidant effect and helps to convey aroma. The maceration and fermentation give little colour to the Ploussard, with its fine skin. Houillon’s pale, exceptionally light and piercingly fresh red is filled with flavours of morello cherry, redcurrants, wild strawberry and quince, a study in deliciousness, the avatar of purity. Wines such as these have an evanescent quality: they are unpredictable, variable, even fragile. They can react to changes of location and atmospheric pressure. Houillon’s convivial red contradicts the notion that wine should be stable. File defiantly under quirk, strangeness and charm.

CALL ME BACCHUS!

Lucien Aviet, aka Bacchus, makes a delicious Savagnin, a stunning Vin Jaune and some of the best examples of Trousseau I have tasted. These wines from the last grape are the colour of cranberry juice, shiny and clear, as if glazed with shimmering acidity. The nose is beautiful, an impression of rain on stone as well as delineated fruit flavours of morello cherries, bilberries and pippy raspberries. The wine fills the mouth without ever being fat: one can begin to detect secondary aromas of musk, leather and sous-bois.

Each vintage though has a particular accent. The 2004, with its intense bouquet of red fruit jelly and forest berries and earthy tones, is marked by redcurrant and red apple skin crunchy acidity. The initial impression is of primary fruit, but this is definitely is a complex wine with the potential to unfold itself over the next ten to fifteen years. The 2002, meanwhile, has greater concentration and more colour, and displays resinous, almost balsamic tones and dark fruit flavours, especially blackberry, blackcurrant, and liquorice. As with Burgundy across the valley the 2005 is a sterling vintage so expect plenty of ripe fruit. It seems forward but this will last and last carried on waves of fresh-fruit acidity.

RECONDITE GRAPE VARIETIES - NUMBER 342

The vineyards of Domaine Dominique Belluard, situated in Ayze in the Haute-Savoie, rise to about 450m above sea level and from them you can see the spur of the Alps. Some of the vines are planted on the flat grounds near the winery, others terraced on the steep inclination of the exposed south-facing hills behind including some on Terre Feu, a red, scarred, mineral-rich subsoil composed of glacial sediments and moraines (continuous linear deposits of rock and gravel). The Alpine climate ensures a big temperature difference between day and night, ensuring both physiological maturity in the grapes as well as good acidity.

The Gringet grape was once reckoned to be Savagnin, the famous grape of Jura, but ampelographical testing suggests that it is, in fact, an older variety. Now the grape has virtually disappeared from Savoie with only Belluard holding any significant quantities: and that a mere 8ha. Most Gringet goes into the production of sparkling wines which are a local speciality and likely to remain so.
Dominique is a serious proponent of biodynamic viticulture. He speaks all of the time of ‘balance’ with regard to the vine and its environment, the relationship of the plant and the cosmos and that the preparations given to the plant are to enable it to find this balance. When we visited the estate last year he frequently mentioned the alignment of the planets and telluric forces and a few eyes rolled, but I suppose that if you don’t work the land you’re not in tune with the rhythms of nature and all such talk must seem like arrant poppycock. The notion of achieving balance derives from holistic aspect of biodynamics that sets out the idea that all life is trying to achieve internal harmony and that we can create the preconditions for this state by observing and understanding how the natural world (or the world of natural forces and energies) works.

In his not hugely prepossessing paint-flaking winery which seems to be held together by masking tape Dominique expounds on his dislike of oak (it deadens the flavour) whilst pouring us some Gringet from the tank. He’s not a fan of stainless steel either, believing that it doesn’t allow the wine to breathe properly. As a result he has installed oval cement betons. All the wines we tasted were fantastically pure, especially the mineral Gringet from the Terre de Feu terroir. No malolactic fermentation here thus the fruit tastes beacon-bright and the acidity sings. The wine conveys initial aromas of jasmine, is citrus-edged with a hint of white peach, elderberry and violet and a twist of aniseed to finish. The latest Gringet cuvées from the egg-shaped tanks are more emollient and slightly more textural as if the lees contact had smoothed some of the stony aggression. Using fermentation vessels of this shape obviates the necessity for batonnage; the gentleness of the extraction seems to create rich layers of leesy flavour. As with the Jura reds these whites have that palpable “mountain purity”, simultaneously intense yet fresh.