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| Champ Divin Crémant du Jura zero dosage 2020 Domaine Pignier “Cellier des Chartreux” Côtes du Jura 2017 Fumey Chatelain “No Sin Tou Tsefs” Arbois 2021 Ganevat “Cuvée Madelon” Vin de France 2020 The Jura is a region located just east of Burgundy, smack against the Swiss border. The drive on the autoroute from Beaune to Arbois is only about an hour, and although the Jurassiens grow many of the same grapes found in Burgundy, e.g., chardonnay and pinot noir, their wines can taste like funhouse mirror representations of these familiar varieties. This difference of expression is a vestige of medieval, cultural isolation when most folks rarely traveled more than fifty kilometers from their villages; separate but also connected, the region’s inhabitants developed a unique sensibility that made sense to them, but perhaps not to others from outside. If you’re not from the east of France, eating or rather trying to eat a Jura andouillette (a sausage made from cow or pig colons that can smell of shit) can be an object lesson in the persistence of cultural isolation, and yet I recommend trying andouillette if you are at a table and it is offered to you, if only as an amateur ethnographer. The Jura is also home to an autochthonous red variety that is pretty much only found there and is also a reflection of a peculiar Jurassien sensibility, albeit one that’s much easier to wrap your head around than a cold plate of sliced andouillette. Poulsard is a grape that is, in the right hands and in the right vintages, capable of producing delicate and subtle wines that feel as if you’re tasting through diaphanous layer after layer, forever receding out of your grasp until the moment you take another swig only to find yourself once again puzzled and pleading, “please come back to me!” The profound poulsards of Pierre Overnoy, since retired, were my introduction to the wine and if a friend pulls a rare bottle of Overnoy from her cellar for you to drink, you have a good friend indeed. Poulsard is also a fragile vine whose fate I fret about—I don’t know how much more time we’ll have with it, due to global warming. The past few vintages have not been kind to poulsard, with hail and frost wreaking havoc. As a consequence, some vignerons have had a succession of zero or limited harvests of poulsard, making the wines increasingly scarce. Some growers have resorted to blending their meager harvests of poulsard with other red grapes, and I’m gratified to have a bit of it, blended with trousseau (another autochthon) and pinot noir to offer to you tonight. |