Fumey Chatelain Arbois Savagnin Ouillé 2023

It's so easy to romanticize the Jura. The limestone hills, the winding roads, the sense that you've stumbled into a place that nobody knows about. But the reality is that making wine there is hard work! The vines are old, the slopes are steep, and the weather doesn't always cooperate. Raphaël and Adeline Fumey knew this when they started with just half a hectare in the mid-1980s. They grew slowly, carefully, learning as they went. They first vinified their own wines in 1991 and built their cellar in Montigny-lès-Arsures in 1999. Today the estate covers 17 hectares, across more than 20 parcels, overseen by their son Marin, who returned in 2020 after making wine across the southern hemisphere. The vines are farmed without chemicals, working toward organic certification.

This is their Savagnin Ouillé. It comes from young vines grown in marl, direct-pressed juice fermented in barrel for 12 months, followed by six months in tank. 'Ouillé' means that the vessel where it ferments is completely topped up, so there is no room for oxygen do its thing the way it does it with other wines from the Jura that aren't topped up. There's freshness and a firm acid backbone that gives the wine structure, layered with tropical fruit and citrus, acacia, and bitter almond.

Drink it with grilled fish, roasted vegetables. Maybe you can char a lemon on the grill too and squeeze it over that beautiful fish? Just saying.