Anne et Jean-Francois Ganevat Poulsard Cotes du Jura Les Chonchons 2023

Les Chonchons draws on some of the domaine's oldest Poulsard vines, rooted in a distinctive seam of grey Lias and Trias marl that Jean-François and Anne farm to strict biodynamic principles, right down to the homemade herbal tisanes sprayed through the season. Poulsard is a notoriously fickle, thin-skinned variety — pale, fragile, and unforgiving of heavy-handed winemaking — which is exactly why it suits the Ganevats' philosophy so well. In the cellar the approach is almost meditative: hand-harvested fruit, a gentle semi-carbonic maceration, fermentation on wild yeasts alone, and roughly a year's ageing in old foudre, all without fining, filtration, or added sulphur, the wine's own carbon dioxide doing the work of protecting it instead.

The result is barely a red at all by conventional standards — a pale, grenadine-bright glass that gives up fresh raspberry and wilted rose on first pour, before spicier, more mineral notes emerge with air. The palate is lace-fine and faintly smoky, carried by real finesse rather than weight, with the kind of ethereal, almost weightless texture that has made great Jura Poulsard cult wine among sommeliers worldwide.