New Arrivals from the Jura!

We'll keep things brief today: We have enough new Jura wines that have trickled in to warrant a little offering. It's grey and rainy today here in New York City, but Spring should finally arrive. To be fair, rain or shine, Jura wines are a fantastic fit for the Spring, with vibrant reds that help us transition from our hankering for bigger and deeper reds in the Winter, and dynamic whites that have body and are full of character - perfect for cooler days before we just want the crispest, coldest white wine we can lay our hands on in the Summer. Click the link below to view the wines, or keep scrolling for producer bios. Today we feature the tasty sparkling wines of Desiré-Petit, Trousseaus from Val de Sorne and Domaine Patelle, a hodgepodge of Michel Gahier cuvées, and the classic Patchwork Chardonnay from the magnanimous Stéphane Tissot, along with a few Vin Jaune bottles we found in the cellar from the late Jean-Charles Maire. Don't forget too, if you missed the offering we recently sent out featuring the wines of Domaine Rijckaert, we'd recommend grabbing some while they're still in stock. All around $30/bottle, the represent arguably the best PQR for Jura wine available in the US! -Eben Lillie

Producer bios below!

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Val de Sorne

Jean-François Ryon is the 14th generation winemaker at Domaine Les Coteaux du Val de Sorne, in the village of Vernantois, and creates wines of a more rustic quality. From his barely 4 hectares, he harvests Poulsard and Trousseau for burly reds, full of earth and spice, along with some Chardonnay that usually ends up in a sparkling wine. Jean-Francois farms organically and focuses on non-interventional cellar methods. Everything Jean-François does here is also an ode to the Jura’s past. His cellar is inside a 17th century building, his vineyards were once part of an estate belonging to the abbey of Saint-Claude, and even his label hosts an old image of Saint Vernier (once the Jura’s patron saint of vintners) picking grapes. There is seemingly no disconnect between culture, land, and wine in Ryon’s approach.

Domaine La Patelle

Domaine La Patelle is a fairly new name in the Jura landscape, started by Pascal Thereau in 2021. Pascal had already been working in wine as a cooper, sourcing wood and crafting barrels for many years before studying winemaking in Beaune in 2018. He worked alongside Stéphane Tissot, sharpening his skills and even acquiring some of Tissot's parcels in 2022 along with several from Domaine les Bodines. Today the estate is all of about 6ha, spread across several lieu-dits in Arbois. Les Tourillons consists of limestone soils and is planted with Chardonnay and Savagnin, while Les Bodines is mostly clay and limestone and planted with Pinot Noir, Trousseau, Poulsard and Savagnin. Pascal works organically and with minimal intervention in the cellar, much like his mentor Tissot. The wines are clean and precise while retaining an expressive, dynamic quality that instantly made us take notice while tasting recently. The reds are pure and exuberant while his Kiosque Chardonnay is a bit more layered and contemplative–all brimming with energy and personality. This marks just the second vintage of Pascal's wines, but they already show a clear focus and level of attention to detail that make them feel like classic, timeless wines. -Jeff DiLorenzo

Michel Gahier

A few kilometers from the relative metropolis of Arbois lies Montigny-les-Arsures, one of the 13 communes that make up the Arbois appellation. Less well-known than Pupillin, Montigny is the home of Jacques Puffeney, “Pope” of the Jura, as well as the darker-fruited and more Pinot-like Trousseau variety. For some, Puffeney’s Trousseau from the “Berangers” vineyard is the apotheosis of this variety. Needless to say there was much rejoicing in the early 2000s when it was rumored that Neal Rosenthal, Puffeney’s importer, would begin working with a young protégé of Puffeney’s: Michel Gahier. Now decades later, his wines are textbook expressions from Jura and he has become an elder to new protégés in the region!

Michel Gahier inherited his family’s vines and has been making his own wine since the ‘80s; in ’90 he began to bottle under his own name. He farms about six hectares and states that this is as much as he can manage by himself without the assistance of chemicals. Amongst Gahier’s holdings is an excellent parcel of 80-year-old Trousseau vines called “Les Grands Vergers;” it lies next to “Berangers” and is a superior site for Trousseau. In the cellar, the wines undergo classical fermentation and aging: a minimum of ten months in barrel and some time in bottle before release. His sulfur regime is reasonable: 15-30 grams depending on the wine. Gahier always relies on naturally occurring flor (the yeast that forms a veil on top of the wine during its maturation, allowing a slow transference between air and wine) for his sous-voile wines. (There are many in the region who provoke flor development with an added yeast). Gahier is understated, even shy, both knowledgeable and humble, a sense of humor lurking below the surface. The wines are a mirror of the man: subtly expressive, quiet, and ever so slightly more generous than his mentor’s wines. This man is an excellent vigneron in his own right; his wines are well worth adding to your cellar. -- (Thanks to Sophie Barrett for this bio from an archived Chambers Street newsletter originally sent in 2011).

EL witih Stéphane Tissot

Stéphane Tissot

Domaine Andre et Mireille Tissot, begun in 1962, is in Montigny-les-Arsures, just a few kilometers from Arbois. Stéphane, their son, took over in 1990 and has slowly but surely established the Tissot name as an important one in the history of Jura wine. A tireless vigneron, Stéphane farms between 45 and 50 hectares biodynamically, travels to distant lands as a spokesperson for the Jura, makes numerous different cuvèes, and is intimately familiar with each of his terroirs. After taking over from his father, André, as the head of the family's estate, Stéphane quickly began leading it in a new direction, eliminating the use of selected yeasts and pushing the farming towards organic methods, a decision he made after meeting Nady Foucault of Clos Rougeard. The domaine received organic certification in 1999, and biodynamic certification 5 years later. Thanks to Stephane's tireless work, the Tissots are regarded as one of the most important producers of the Jura, and their belief of and focus on well-farmed, well-made wine has never wavered.

Though most of his wines are from the Arbois appellation, Stéphane has vineyard land all over the northern part of the region. In the cellar, we think of Stéphane as being a modernist. He uses some new wood; his vineyard specific Chardonnays are at times reminiscent of white Burgundies. Most of his white wines are topped up, yet his sous voile Savagnin proves him to be more than capable of making excellent “traditional” Jura white wine. His red wines are elegant and seamless, some oak kissed, others the essence of freshness. He leaves the impression of being a perfectionist, each wine impeccably executed in the style he has chosen, an especially impressive feat given the size of the domaine.

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