Tastes of the Jura

Appears in
Ten Vineyard Lunches
Ten Vineyard Lunches

By Richard Olney

Published 1988

  • About

The wines of the Jura are all unusual and, except for vin jaune and vin de paille, share a certain family resemblance - sturdy, muscular and friendly - whatever the color.

The pink-fleshed and pale-skinned Poulsard grape is crushed and macerated with the skins for Pupillin rosé. Its allure, but for the color, is that of a red wine; like more typical rosés, or light, simple, young and cool red wines or many rustic white wines, it is very much at home with sardines.

The most unusual of the Juras, perhaps of all French wines, is vin jaune, of which the best known bears the village appellation of Château-Chalon; made from the white Savignin grape, deeply colored with bronze reflections, extraordinarily dry, concentrated, nutty in flavor and long-lived, it is often said to resemble sherry because, like fino sherries, it is kept for a long time (a minimum of six years), unracked and never topped up, in large kegs with the wine’s surface protected from contact with air by a naturally formed film of yeasts. The analogy to sherry is superficial for vin jaune resembles only itself.