Winemaker Notes
Tissot's Singulier Trousseau features very beautiful ripeness of fruit, notes of morello cherry, brandied cherries, and spices. Ample mouthfeel with fine, ripe tannins. Very nice balance between the typicity of the grape variety, the material and the drinkability.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
I loved the purity of the bottled 2023 Trousseau Singulier, a wine I had admired early on last year. Tissot destems Trousseau and Poulsard by hand and ferments Pinot Noir with full clusters, and this had a gentle vinification and a long infusion, one month for part of it and up to three months for the rest. He shocked my companions by shaking the bottle before it was poured. He said the sediment makes the wines last longer on the palate. To our faces of disbelief, he jumped out of his chair and into the cellar to fetch another bottle that he uncorked carefully and poured without moving the sediment for comparison. It was unbelievable but true, the shaken bottle had a much longer mouthfeel, while the clean one felt much shorter and the fruit suddenly dropped, while the one mixed with the sediment stayed much longer. According to Tissot, all Jura reds should be shaken and mixed with the sediment before pouring... I liked the 2023 reds and also the whites we tasted from barrel...
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Wine Spectator
The perfumed 2023 Arbois Trousseau Singulier enters the stage with intense white pepper, rose petal and pomegranate. Vinified from fully destemmed grapes, the 2023 is utterly inviting. Though I detect a hint of volatile phenols, there is an overall harmony and balance to this 2023 Trousseau that’s just lovely.
Indigenous to the Jura region of France, Trousseau is an intensely hued red wine grape that can make powerful wines with aging potential. Parentage analysis shows that it is related to Chenin Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc and Savagnin. Though no one is certain how or why, Trousseau made a long journey west across France and the Iberian Peninsula well over 200 years ago to take a second home under the alias, Bastardo, in Portugal. It is also permitted in the production of Port. Somm Secret—Trousseau also goes by the names, Maturana Tinta, Merenzao and Verdejo Negro.
On the foothills of the Jura Mountains, just east of the Cote de Beaune on the Switzerland border, the Jura wine-producing zone is recognized for its unique reds, as well as its particular and diverse styles of whites.
Though borrowed from their neighbor Burgundy, Chardonnay and Pinot noir have been growing in Jura since the Middle Ages. But here the altitude, topography, climate and clay-rich, marl soils support a different style of Pinot noir, not to mention its other deeply-colored, full-bodied indigenous reds, Poulsard and Trousseau.
Considering area under vine, growers here favor Chardonnay for its consistency and reliability; it comprises almost half of Jura's vineyard acreage. However, Jura Chardonnay is anything but boring; its many offbeat styles are part of what make region’s wines so distinctive. It is used for Cremant (sparkling), Macvin (a fortified wine), as well as fine examples at the quality level of Burgundy.
Jura also has a unique oxidative style for Chardonnay but is better recognized for its similarly-styled “vin jaune,” meaning ‘yellow wine,’ which is made from the indigenous variety, Savagnin. Vin jaune is made using techniques similar to those used to make Sherry.
For all of its wines, Jura favors a traditional, natural and often organic style in viticulture and winemaking.