2011 Benedicte et Stephane Tissot Château-Chalon, 620ml

Bénédicte et Stéphane Tissot is the label used for wines that formerly were labeled Domaine André et Mireille Tissot. André and Mireille founded the Arbois estate in 1962 and their son Stéphane learned his winemaking craft in Australia and South Africa before taking over the family estate in 1990. He now runs it with his wife Bénédicte. The estate became entirely organic in 1999 and entirely biodynamic in 2004. Stéphane and Bénédicte have worked to make the wines of Jura, and their estate, better known internationally and the couple now exports about half of what they produce. Due to technical legal reasons, some of their wines are still produced under Stéphane’s parents’ names. Like some other game-changing producers in the Jura, the domaine has long avoided the addition of sulfur, or has at least used very little sulfur. The domaine produces 28 wines, including Chardonnay, Savagnin, and Trousseau and sparkling Crémant.

Château-Chalon is an Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée for the wines made around the village of Château-Chalon in Jura. Only white wines from the Savagnin grape made in the Vin Jaune (“yellow wine”) style are made in this appellation. Vin Jaune is the most distinctive wine of Jura. Jura is France’s smallest wine region, with about 4,000 acres of vineyards, and one of its least well-known. Nestled into the foothills of the Jura Mountain range on the far eastern side of central France near Switzerland, the region includes four geographic appellations. They are Arbois, Côtes du Jura, Etoile and Château-Chalon. There are also two appellations that pertain to the style of wine made, Crémant du Jura and Macvin, which is a liqueur. Jura grows Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, like its neighbor Burgundy, but is especially admired among cognoscenti for its distinctive regional grapes, which are the white grape Savagnin and the red grape Ploussard. Outside of Château-Chalon, Savagnin, known locally as Naturé, is also often blended with Chardonnay, known in Jura as Melon d’Arbois.