Anne et Jean-François Ganevat, De Toute Beaute 2019

Gamay, Pinot Noir, Indigenous Jura Varieties

Jura, France

Whole cluster fermentation. Aged 10 months in foudre. NO ADDED SULFUR, VEGAN

Jean-François Ganevat is looking back to move forward. Like many of the world’s best vignerons, he has re-discovered techniques and grape varieties from the past to make cutting edge wines. Since 2013, Jean-François also buys fruit from a total of 10 trusted growers, all of them friends, including two ex-employees who worked for him for many years. The “négoce” was started with his sister Anne to respond to lower yields and increasing climate events (hail among others). Jean-François likes to keep things interesting: he crafts an astonishing number of cuvées, over a hundred of them; Anne helps keeping track of them all. The quality is extremely high across the board: all cuvées are unique, yet they all reveal Jean-François obsessive attention to details and his talent. His wines are generous and powerfully expressive, at once accessible and profound. The total production is around 65,000 to 70,000 bottles.

In 2006 he completely eliminated the use of sulfur. He says the resulting wines are much better and fresher (no mushroom or buttery notes), lighter on their feet and more expressive. This achievement is only possible with clean fruit and proper vineyard management (15 people work full time the 13 hectares of vine) and spotless clean equipment, from the tubes to the pumps – no cleaning products are used, only water. His crew destems the bunches by hand with a reed tool then the vinification and elevage takes place in a variety of containers: demi-muids (600 liter casks), larger tronconic casks, and since 2014, unlined clay amphoras from Italy. Jean-François very much likes the freshness, salinity and purity they bring to the wines. There is no new oak in his cellar – the older oak, the better. He only uses indigenous yeasts for the fermentation, which lasts a few weeks – he ferments his wines in large volume containers, as the bigger the volume, the slower the fermentation, the best it is for the wine. The wines are then left for a month plus before racking. The whites get a minimum of 2 years of elevage – they come from great terroirs and need time, the reds one year.