Off Piste: Jura Tasting

Coming from a cool vintage, this 9 year old wine is youthful and radiant, still holding it's core of concentrated, still very primary, fruit alluding to a long life ahead. Lemon curd meets ripe yellow stone fruit with a delicate sweet herbal zing and a long mouthwatering salty twang. Its powerful, loaded with flavour and freshness with a juicy sherry-like side note. Outstanding flavour intensity without being too much. Wonderfully balanced, quite the wine! kayleen reynolds, PWS

The 2022 Chardonnay Arbois Pupillin Les Charots opens with a markedly flinty profile. Dried lemon peel and yellow apple add more layers. On the concentrated palate, the 2022 packs a beautiful sense of harmony. A focused finish wraps it up. (92) NICOLAS GREINACHER, vinous

(2021 Review) Earthy and spicy, the 2021 Arbois La Capitaine blends 75% Pinot Noir, 25% Poulsard and 15% Trousseau. Crushed flower aromas add another layer. Although the nose suggests complexity, the modestly concentrated palate and drying finish take away some of the fun to taste this today. Give it one more year in bottle to find itself. NICOLAS GREINACHER, vinous

Five years in barrel and topped up (ouille) style here. Fine wine paradigm producer of biodynamic credentials.

Intense as the variety is and should be, lemon curd, lime, ginger, salted almonds, strong brine currency and red apple sweetness and crunch, with a touch of mustard powder in the mix for good measure. Slippery texture with a little grip and flintiness to it. Complex, intense, but fresh. So many layers to the wine. Glorious. (94) MIKE BENNIE, the wine front

Les Granges-Bernard is a wonderful old Jurassien farm surrounded by pastures on the plateau behind Menétru, and it is here that Marie-Pierre Chevassu-Fassenet was brought up with her three sisters. Her mother Marie came from a family of vignerons and her father Denis farmed mainly cows. He took on some vineyards in the 1980s and, as all his daughters enjoyed helping, he expanded the business and started making and selling wine. Marie-Pierre chose a career in wine and after wine studies in Beaune and an oenology degree at Dijon she worked in New Zealand, Châteauneuf-du-Pape and Champagne before returning to work in the Jura for several years as cellar manager at La Maison du Vigneron [the largest négociant in the Jura]. She took over the wine estate in 2008, whilst one of her sisters runs the farm.

Marie-Pierre’s husband, Cédric Fassenet, is a theatre director in Lons, but helps with tastings, and Marie-Pierre continues to receive help from her parents. However, she is very keen to keep the estate small, in particular so that she can take care of the vineyards personally, and everything is worked in a sustainable way. Marie-Pierre manually hoes 3ha of the vineyards but explains that, due to erosion of the steep slopes, there are some parcels in Château-Chalon where it is simply impossible to work without herbicide. She uses systemic treatments early and late in the season but is a keen member of the local group working in lutte raisonnée towards Terra Vitis certification. The atmospheric cellars at the farm are full of old wood from large foudres down to fûts and feuillettes.

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!