Anne & Jean-Francois Ganevat NV "Le Jaja du Fred" Pinot Noir, Vin de France, France

Anne & Jean-Francois Ganevat NV "Le Jaja du Fred" Pinot Noir Vin de France, France

Winemaker: Jean François Ganevat

Farming: Biodynamic

Varieties: Pinot Noir

Terroir: Clay, Limestone (Burgundy)

Vinification:  Whole cluster fermentation à l’ancienne, No racking of the must, All whites go through malolactic fermentation, No sulfur dioxide added during vinification, only a touch at bottling.

Aging: Reds aged in Burgundian barrels for one year before bottling. 

What's the difference between wines marked as SAS Anne & Jean-François Ganevat, and wines marked Domaine Ganevat?  After consecutive vintages of losing large portions of his harvest,  Jean-François was forced to innovate to make more wine. In partnership  with his sister Anne, he went to friends in Alsace, Beaujolais, and  Savoie to source more fruit. Anne and Jean-François even went so far as  to purchase vines in the Beaujolais. Each Vin de France cuvée is a blend  of estate fruit from the Jura and purchased (or estate) fruit from  another region, thus allowing Jean-François to apply his savoir-faire in  winemaking with indigenous grape varieties from the Jura to create a  new and unique line of wines. All of the vineyards contributing to this  project are farmed organically.

--

After working both for his father and for the prestigious Domaine  Jean-Marc Morey in Chassagne-Montrachet, Jean-François returned to the  Jura in 1998 to take over the family domaine. With only eight-and-a-half  hectares under vine, the family had seventeen different local varietals  planted of both red and white grapes—an incredible amount of variation  to consider for holdings of such small size. For such a fervent  perfectionist and insatiable lover of details as Jean-François, the  decision to have the domaine certified as biodynamic was a natural  choice. 

Jean-François creates a stunning number of cuvées, ranging between  thirty-five and forty every year!  His methodology goes far beyond the  details of the average vigneron. For some, his process would be maddening, as each cuvée calls for a highly individualized élévage.  Jean-François is committed to minute doses of sulfur, so low in fact,  that many fear it hurting the wines during transport. He curbs this  issue entirely by aging many of his whites on the lees for extended  periods of time, anywhere from two to eleven years! In all of his years  making wine, he has never had a problem.  In the Jura, many of  the wines go through a traditional, intentional oxidation; however  Jean-François aims to lend a greater lightness and elegance to wines of  this style than are typical. He gravitates toward the Burgundian style,  using ouillage to top off barrels. Jean-François Ganevat is a  master of his craft, one of the true magicians of the eclectic. To say  that his grapes are spun into gold would not be far from the truth; they  are entirely otherworldly. -- Kermit Lynch, Importer