Oxidative — vin jaune (sous voile)
The Jura's cult dry white, aged for years under a veil of flor yeast — Sherry's biological ageing without the fortification.
About vin jaune (sous voile)
Vin jaune ('yellow wine') is the Jura's contribution to the world's great oxidative styles and one of France's most distinctive wines. Made exclusively from the Savagnin grape, it is fermented dry and then aged in barrel for a minimum of six years and three months — crucially, without ever topping up the evaporating wine. A film of flor yeast (the voile) forms on the surface, protecting the wine from browning oxidation while feeding on it to create the hallmark aromas: walnut, almond, dried apple, and a savoury curry-and-fenugreek spice. The finished wine is bottled in the squat 62cl clavelin, whose volume represents what remains of a litre after the long ageing. Bone-dry, piercing, and almost immortal, vin jaune is a sommelier's cult object and the classic partner to Comté cheese and Bresse chicken in cream. Editorially it is the unfortified cousin of Fino Sherry.
Production process
Principal producers
- Domaine Macle
- Stéphane Tissot
- Berthet-Bondet
Editorial notes
Decant and give it air; it needs no chilling and, uniquely, keeps for days-to-weeks once opened. The classic pairing is aged Comté.