Ah, the Jura! For most Americans, this French region calls up images of dinosaurs and scenes from the film Jurassic Park. Yet for wine lovers, this region brings forth memories of delicious and unusually long-lived (mostly white) wine. How long-lived? Try a Savignin from 1959 that I savored at a recent tasting of Jura wines.
The wine was produced by the two brothers who own Domaine Jean Bourdy, and as I tasted it, that soliloquy from the film Sideways came to mind (the one in which the Mia character says that when she tastes old wines she thinks about all the people who picked the grapes and made the wine, wondering about the weather and if any of them were still alive).
Unlike Mia, when I taste old wine, I’m thinking more about the acidity, the balance, and what keeps the freshness in the wine more than anything else. I absolutely could not believe that a half-century year old wine could be so fresh and vibrant, yet then again, it must be the combination of the cold northern region and the very special soil of the Jura. And of course the wine probably has not moved out of its freezing cave since it was laid away.
Domaine Jean Bourdy was created between 1475 and 1500, and the brothers represent the family’s 15th generation. Their small village, Arlay, is located in the heart of the Jura’s vineyard with all vines (10 hectares) made with the biodynamic technique since 2005. “We vinify wine in the traditional method, and also exactly how it was done at the end of the 19th century,” the brothers tell me, adding the wines are untreated and are always put in old casks for maturation.
The Jura is one of the oldest vineyard areas in France, dating back to the sixth century. The Phoenicians brought vine cuttings with them. The climate is continental and the soils are similar to Burgundy. Of the five major grape varieties in the region, only Chardonnay and Pinot Noir will sound familiar. The others include (white) Savagnin and (red) Trousseau and Ploussard.
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