Vin Jaune 1998 (Maison du Vigneron)

Hello,

it’s 6°C in Paris and this post is way overdue.

A couple of months ago I invited a friend over for a chat. She said she would bring a cheese platter. A light-bulb went of in my head, signaling this was the perfect opportunity to pull out a Vin Jaune I had been given the previous summer and which had been patiently waiting to be paired off. Vin Jaune is one of those crazy little things that’ll have you head over heels faster than you can say Saccharomyces Bayanus which is the particular strain of yeasts that make Vin Jaune, well, Vin Jaune. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Hailing from a tiny perimeter in the beautiful Jura region, also laudable for Comté cheese and delicious smoked trout, Vin Jaune is made from Savagnin, a varietal known in Germanophone countries as Traminer. To cut a long story short, the wine is made traditionally and then aged for a minimum of six years and three months in barrels which carry the Saccharomyces Bayanus strain, the yeast forming a veil shielding the wine off from (whilst allowing a particular interaction with) the environing oxygen. The only other region to produce wines following this process is Xérès in Spain.

Vin Jaune is generally spicy, profound, nutty (in both meanings of the word) and almost unsurpassed as a pairing to mountain cows cheeses which are kind of my favorite, at least right now. It is definitely the kind of wine you want to give time, as it requires time to understand, taste, enjoy properly.

Young, it is often quirky, sexy to a fault and funky as a disco ball. As it ages it acquires depth, nuance, wisdom. Like true friends, you can always turn to Vin Jaune for a good time or a word of advise. Yes, it’s that kind of wine.

Winely yours,

Judith S.