Winemaker Notes
An incredibly complex Crémant, with fine bubbles and saline infused minerality. The green apple and white flowers are abundant leading to a long and elegant finish.
Blend: 50% Chardonnay, 40% Pinot Noir, Trousseau & Poulsard, 10% Savagnin
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
The NV Brut Blanc de Noirs Crémant du Jura tasted on this occasion was vinified from a 2020 base and aged for four years on its fine lees. Composed almost entirely of Pinot Noir with a small addition of Trousseau, it opens with intense lemon flesh, wet stone and mild brioche. Sapid and generous on the palate, its decisive acidity is a clear reminder that we're in the Jura. This lovely Crémant carries vivid inner energy and ends with striking freshness. Dosage is 2 grams per liter.
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Wine & Spirits
A tense, floral sparkler, this feels cool, crisp and linear. It has a salty mineral edge to the lees that would work well with brandade de morue, and it would be refreshing with salted herring.
A term typically reserved for Champagne and Sparkling Wines, non-vintage or simply “NV” on a label indicates a blend of finished wines from different vintages (years of harvest). To make non-vintage Champagne, typically the current year’s harvest (in other words, the current vintage) forms the base of the blend. Finished wines from previous years, called “vins de reserve” are blended in at approximately 10-50% of the total volume in order to achieve the flavor, complexity, body and acidity for the desired house style. A tiny proportion of Champagnes are made from a single vintage.
There are also some very large production still wines that may not claim one particular vintage. This would be at the discretion of the winemaker’s goals for character of the final wine.
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.