Why and when did Jura come onto your wine radar?
The Jura wine region barely registered a mention when I began working in the world of wine and studying in the UK in the 1980s. However, as an avid skier, in the 1990s I was lucky enough to acquire a second home in the French Alps, and this way I was able to get to know Savoie wines very early. Sometimes we would drive down from London, rather than flying, and the highway went past the Jura wine region. In those days, very few Jura wines left the region, but at one of the highway service areas I could buy a few to try at home and glean what knowledge I could about them from French wine books and magazines. Up to then most of my work involved wine education, but I did a little writing, and in 1999, I was commissioned to contribute a very small chapter on Jura, Savoie and Bugey for a new wine encyclopaedia.
A first visit for just one day only served to teach me that this tiny region was an extremely intriguing one and very difficult to understand, but it was a start. A couple of years later the author Tom Stevenson asked me to be the expert contributor on Jura and Savoie for a new, sadly short-lived (2004-2009) annual guide (Wine Report) – I protested that I was far from an expert and received the response “no-one knows anything about Jura, Wink – your job is to find out!” And so it began: visiting 20-30 producers each year (always adding in new ones), and this was before almost anyone else outside France. Around 2008 I realised that a few Jura wines made their way to the US, to Denmark, and to Japan – a Jura buzz was beginning, and I was for once in the right place at the right time, to help educate the world about the region.
If you were to give a one-hour masterclass on the wines of the Jura, and you could pick 3 bottles (or styles) to pour for your students, what would you pick and why?
Firstly, presuming that this is a masterclass for people who know a fair amount about wine, but little about the Jura, and are keen to learn, I would ask the masterclass organiser to let me pick five bottles/styles. As one of the hallmarks of Jura is its immense diversity of styles, three is simply not enough. Each style enables me to tell a tale about the Jura, its authenticity and its upside-down world of wine, although I might slip over the one-hour mark:
Crémant du Jura – this traditional method sparkling wine is – arguably – the only ‘normal’ or recognisable Jura wine style and is ideal to begin telling the story to a Jura neophyte. Even at the lower price ranges, the quality is usually excellent, so this is an affordable and enjoyable wine, which helped put Jura wine on the world stage. More Crémant is exported than any other style.
Red Trousseau – in the Jura, red wines are always tasted before white wines, partly because the red wine styles are light, and partly because tasting red after oxidative white wines is hard. Positioning the red between the two families of white wines (topped-up or ouillé and oxidative or sous voile) makes no sense. Trousseau provides a good intro to Jura reds and the grape is genetically the same as Portugal’s Bastardo. This goes some way to explaining why it was until recently only planted on sites with a warm gravel/limestone topsoil above the clay and a southerly aspect. This kicks off a climate change discussion because today the warming climate allows Trousseau to be grown successfully in a range of sites, and year on year can produce great wine.
Terroir-specific, barrel-fermented/aged Chardonnay – high quality, well-made Chardonnay from an unusual marl terroir can really shine and it tastes so distinctively different from Chardonnays from elsewhere. Here’s the chance to dig deeper into the interesting Jura geology and history too… some people might think Chardonnay was a relative newcomer to Jura, the reverse is true as it has been grown here probably for as long as in Burgundy.
Savagnin Ouillé – a style of wine that simply did not exist 30+ years ago, it is always exciting to taste this and to talk about Savagnin’s origins, its structure and flavours, its versatility in winemaking and how the style has evolved. Most audiences are surprised and delighted if this is their first experience of a Savagnin ouillé. And then amazed that the same grape produces the last wine in the line-up.
Savagnin Tradition (sous voile) or Vin Jaune – the choice will depend on availability and budget. I would ask the organiser of the masterclass to provide some Comté cheese and possibly walnuts at this point in the tasting (not earlier, as it will all be eaten too soon!). This is a chance to explain how Vin Jaune is made, and if a Savagnin is served, the explanation is simply that it is like a ‘baby’ Vin Jaune. Here is Jura tradition in a nutshell.
I love giving Jura masterclasses, but it is very hard to explain Jura in an hour… so this gives me a chance to encourage people to buy my books so that they can learn more.
Do you have any favorite Jura wine and food pairings?
Over the many years I’ve had the chance to experiment, I have found that almost all Jura wine styles are the most versatile wines anywhere to pair with a range of food, undoubtedly because they all have a wonderful freshness of acidity and stoney (or mineral) character, along with hidden depths of flavour. I love the reds with any mushroom and/or pork dishes, and more than often I select a Savagnin Ouillé to go with a whole range of dishes if at a restaurant with people choosing different dishes.
It took me many years to be brave enough to try the oxidative sous voile styles with more than the obvious Comté cheese match or with the classic local dish of Chicken and morel mushrooms cooked with Vin Jaune. But there is a reason that Japanese chefs love Jura wines and Jura chefs love introducing Japanese flavours into their dishes. The matches here, and with other Asian-influenced cuisine, can be sublime.
One final thing if you get the chance: don’t be afraid to order mature Jura wines. Both reds and whites of all styles age and develop superbly, as long as they have been properly stored. And then the food pairings become ever more interesting.
Do you think Jura wines are becoming too expensive?
At the source, direct from the producer, with a couple of exceptions, Jura wines continue to be priced fairly, even if the prices have increased steadily. The same cannot be said of further down the line once the wine has been exported and distributed. The problem is that the combination of very low volumes and growing demand, in particular of certain cult producers, has led to greed and even speculation. In my 2024 book Jura Wine Ten Years On, I do have a complete rant about speculation of Jura wines. The only way to avoid this trend, is to explore producers beyond the cult names, seek advice from good retailers and sommeliers, and to refuse to pay sky high prices. If you can visit the region, then you can relish drinking the wines there – on the wine lists of the local restaurants and wine bars, the prices are held well in check.
Is it easy for a wine lover to visit the Jura?
For independent visits rather than as part of a group, I would say both yes and no. Beginning with the no… it’s not that easy to get to the Jura unless you rent a car, neither is it easy to get around without a car. Taxis and private drivers are scarce, but you can enjoy Arbois, the main wine town without a car, and also get around on a bicycle if you don’t mind some hills. It is also almost impossible to visit certain famous wine producers, unless someone has given you a personal introduction, and even then, you are likely to be grouped with other people, so if you can’t make the specific time/date it’s impossible. Accommodations exist at all levels, but get booked up quickly, and the majority are at the simpler end.
What is easy, is to relax, to absorb and to enjoy the atmosphere and landscape of the Jura wine region by staying in or close to Arbois, Poligny or Château-Chalon. Here you can make the most of the growing numbers of excellent restaurants, bars and stores, including several wine producer shops in Arbois, where you can taste and buy. All through the wine route there are wine producers open to visit, some by appointment, some accepting casual visitors in normal working hours. Simply put, they may not be at the top of your list to visit, or you may not have heard of them, but they still produce some lovely wines, and you may be in for some excellent surprises. And you can drink Jura wines at affordable prices all day, oh … and did I say, cheese? After you can walk it off or visit some of the cultural and historic sites in the area. Jura can be idyllic in spring, summer or fall. Not everything is open in wintertime, and the weather can be grim. A final tip: Jura is only just over one hour from the Burgundy wine region, and less than two hours from Lyon or Geneva, so what are you waiting for?
Credits
Thank you to Wink Lorch for sharing these stories and insights. Her headshot was taken by Matt Wilson.
You can buy her books here: Académie du Vin Library.
To learn more about Jura, including terroir, varietals and links to bottles at a variety of price points, check out my recent post, August: Jura.
I love the reminder that the answer to rising prices isn’t necessarily to give up on Jura; it may just be to stop chasing the same handful of names. A region this diverse should reward curiosity more than consensus.