This is a delicious, macerated wine from Bruyère and Houillon in the Jura! We have posted the back label ahead of the front label for this wine as the back label (contra-etiquette in French) contains the story of just how difficult things were in 2017.

The first line of the back label refers to how bad the harvest was in 2017 due to the “année de terrible gel” – being the year of terrible frosts. This is yet another example of climate change introducing extremes in the weather. The frosts are appearing earlier than usual when the buds are just coming out on the vines and hence damaging these buds thus reducing the amount of fruit that can be grown on the vines. This is clearly the case as the yield was only 6 hectolitres per hectare when a yield of between 20 and 50 hectolitres would be the expected value.

The “terroir argilo-calcaire” is a reference to the soil of clay and limestone from which they hand-picked the grapes. The grapes were macerated for one month in a stainless steel tank before being pressed and moved to old barrels supplied by Etienne Thiebaud of Domaine des Cavarodes.

The juice was then left to mature and was topped up (ouillé) each time the level in the barrel dropped too far.

The wine was matured in the barrels and then bottled without the addition of any sulphites and without any filtration but there may (as always) be some natural sulphites (contient des sulfites naturels) in the wine – but only in tiny quantities. – Living Wines

*Limit of one bottle per customer