Jura yellow wine: history and production

Every first weekend in February, nearly 30  000 visitors converge on the Jura . What big event moves crowds to this extent?  ? The Breakthrough of Yellow Wine of course  ! Celebrated each year in turn in one of the region's producing villages, the ceremony celebrates the "  drilling  » (opening made in a barrel to extract the wine) after six years and three months of aging, the minimum time required to be able to put the famous wine on sale.

The ceremony is an opportunity for the public to taste yellow wines and Jura wines in numerous cellars where most of the producers set up for the occasion.

But how did we come to celebrate the yellow wine  ? What is its history? Where and how is it made?  ? What does it taste like?  ?  You will find all the answers to these questions in this less than 5-minute read.

History of Vin Jaune

The history of yellow wine begins with a legend  : she tells that a winemaker who had abandoned a barrel at the bottom of his cellar was very pleasantly surprised, many years later, by the delicious flavor of the nectar obtained. It would therefore be the fruit of chance that gave birth to the  yellow wine  ? If the story is enjoyable, it is probably too good to be true.

Unfortunately, to date, very little evidence is available to confirm the precise origin of this wine . Indeed, if the first written trace documenting vin jaune only dates back to 1822, we nevertheless know that its existence is more distant because the oldest bottle of vin jaune found dates back to 1774. Some assumptions even date its origins back to the 13th century.  !

Finally, the famous "  Yellow wine breakthrough  » was only created in 1996 by winemaker Bernard Badoz in order to honor the subtlety and complexity of this  precious golden nectar. If his primary desire was to create a real evening of discovery and tasting, it must be admitted that The event has since lost its luster and more often turns into drunkenness. (in the same way as the festivities organized for Beaujolais nouveau).

While the history of this wine remains fairly mysterious overall, it is nevertheless easier to understand its production and vinification. First of all, vin jaune comes (as you must have understood) from the Jura, a small wine-growing region extending over 80 kilometers, and can be produced within 4 AOC: Côtes du Jura, Star, Arbois as well as Château-Chalon whose 50 hectares are dedicated solely to its production.

Furthermore, it is a wine produced from a single and unique local grape variety  : THE savagnin . If this grape can be vinified in a “  classic  " in order to make one fruity wine and saline, a completely different profile of aromas will emerge when it is produced as yellow wine.

To bear the name "  yellow wine  ",  the savagnin  will have to be aged in oak barrels for at least 6 years and three months without topping up .Topping up is a method of filling a barrel as the wine contained in the barrel evaporates (the famous "topping up").  angels share  ") with the same wine of a similar quality. This process protects the wine during aging from oxidation (the wine being in contact with more oxygen in the barrel if it is not completely filled).

Here, thanks to this non-topping, a veil of yeast will form on the surface of the liquid in the barrel, thus protecting the wine from excess oxygen. It is this atypical and  long aging in barrels which will give this famous taste of “  YELLOW  » to wine with complex and unique aromas.

Once the vinification is complete, our nectar will be bottled in a specific format  : the clavelin, a beautiful bottle with the appearance of "  old school  » 62 cl . Why this capacity? Quite simply because after evaporation during this long aging (cf. "  angels share  »), there would theoretically be 62 cl of wine left for each liter vinified at the start.