An aromatic wine made up of equal parts Gewürztraminer and Pinot Gris. Pouring a hazy shade of amber, the wine simply jumps from the glass with notes of tropical fruits, quince and spice. Find out more.
Skin-contact Chardonnay ‘Acres Macéré’, a wine that is only made in rare instances, using fruit from En Arces, Arbois – a plot comprised of old vines planted over limestone and marl. Textured, hazy and perfumed, this is a wine that captures the richness of Jura, with citrus, flowers and herbs combining to beautiful effect. The grapes were destemmed and the wine macerated on the skins for three months, before being pressed to vats for a year of elévage. Perfumed yet delicate and nuanced, a wine of rare energy that is sure to only get better with time.
Such is the scope of Alice Bouvot’s négociant project, it is easy to forget that the core of her work remains the singular, vivid expressions of native varieties from her own vineyards in the Jura. We’re very happy to get our hands on a handful of bottles.
Despite having trained in Bordeaux and Burgundy, Alice Bouvot knew that when it came to start her own domaine, the Jura would be the place. In 2004 she started from scratch, buying a small cellar in the village of Arbois and a couple of hectares of vines in the hills surrounding.
Alice now farms around five hectares of Chardonnay, Savagnin, Poulsard, Trousseau and Pinot Noir, with holdings in some of the region’s very best lieu-dits such as En Curon, La Mailloche, Les Nouvelles and Les Corvées. Vineyard work is done by hand and is both fanatical and fantastic, with biodynamic farming used to great effect in retaining a real biodiversity in the vineyard. These are some of the most beautiful parcels we have seen. After a number of lean vintages, Alice had to look further afield to make ends meet and now harvests grapes at trusted friend’s properties all over France, making an equally exciting range of negotiant wines.
In a good year, she makes a dazzling number of cuvées. There is no recipe and winemaking is dynamic, with decisions being made only once the fruit has been brought to the cellar, where fermentation, vessels and élevage varies from parcel to parcel and vintage to vintage, though nothing is ever added at any stage. It’s a refreshingly free approach that yields individual wines of real character, the common thread being a sort of boundless energy, where each is as nourishing, delicious and exciting as the last.