Marcher country, the Jura lies to the east of Burgundy and the contrast is marked. Burgundy: the very name is redolent of opulence. The architecture, the courtliness, the great wines: the aristocratic civilisation of Burgundy is a dance to the cornucopia of nature. Among the rocks and hills and gorges of the Jura, nature is less generous: livelihoods harder wrought. But as so often in European history, adversity has been the nursery of triumph.
The Jura produces a famous wine, vin jaune. Until this week, I had hardly tasted it. That has now been rectified, in a spectacular manner. Those who try to write about wine often talk of terroir, minerality and tradition. With vin jaune, those are understatements. This is an old-fashioned wine, made as it was centuries ago: tasting as wines of earlier eras probably tasted, when preservation was the first priority.
Left to itself, wine will oxidise and deteriorate.
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