This white Côtes de Jura ‘Les Premices’ went really well with our fish last night. Really well. Different and distinct. Great find. Barbara reckoned it was unusually crisp for a Chardonnay. Not wishing to come on the old wine bore, I simply remarked that the Jura wine area is pretty close to Southern Burgundy. I might have added “where crisp chardonnay is not unknown” … but thought better of it.
From the Côte Chalonnaise to, say, Château Chalon, Jura is about an hour … for a French driver. Chateau Chalon wine is very different … and another of those lovely small French Appellations that comprise just the one hillside. It is one of Jura’s idiosyncratic wines; wine of grapes dried on straw anyone? Jura does several idiosyncratic wine regions, each with its own grape varieties, bottles of weird shapes and even sizes…62cl??? Yes, I know why they do that but it’s still bonkers. They leave wine in barrels for years till it tasted like … Sherry? was … unexpected … by me. But explained so persuasively by old Monsieur Bourdy in his musty book-lined study by the fire, that I got really sold on it. Hard to sell it though. Back then in the 70’s. Maybe now?
I remember first arriving there in my trusty Transit. I had two new young staff with me on an ‘educational tour’. Money was short so I had to let them pass the night in the van whilst I put up at a nearby Auberge. Cruel? Well, one of those two, Ade, is just about to retire as Managing Director of our US operation, so a few nights sleeping on a bed of wine boxes seems to have done no lasting harm.
Ade and I were on our Board through the 90’s/00’s as the ‘wine people’. Our colleague, the ‘computers person’ was a super competent guy called Phillip who married a Jura girl, then upped and retired there. Heard nothing since. Phillip? Are you still there? Allo, Allo. Can we come and stay?
Enough rambling … Les Premices is a lovely alternative to white Burgundy.
