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.
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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