Among the most sought-after labels in the world of sommeliers, Jura’s finest wines provide the drinker with profound Burgundian elegance that is further amplified by a fascinating, unrivaled sense of enchantment. Add on their tendency to shatter France’s price-to-quality scale and the fact that elite producers only bottle them in the smallest of quantities, and you’re looking at one of the cultiest wine regions on earth. Whereas 20 years ago you could walk into 10 retail shops and never see a bottle of red wine from Jura, today, the highly allocated titans of the region are fiercely scrapped over and people are left empty-handed with each passing vintage. All this, of course, further locks the wines into an endless cycle of higher prices and tighter availability.
Fortunately, for those of us who don’t have unlimited financial resources and time with which to pursue white whales, Les Matheny is the new name to follow for extraordinary, and affordable, quality. Emeric Foléat of Les Matheny has channeled everything he learned throughout his long mentorship with legend Jacques Puffeney—especially his treatment of indigenous red grapes. It was with Puffeney that Emeric discovered Poulsard was more than a light-skinned, delicately perfumed red wine, and it clearly shows in his 30-months-barrel-aged creation. Today’s 2016 Poulsard is vibrating with raw energy, intensely layered perfume, and the most outstanding marriage of plush texture, freshness, and savory minerality; it is simply sensational. This bottle confirms what had already been a buzzing rumor: Les Matheny has arrived and will soon be a permanent addition to the cult Jura scene!
[NOTE: Today's limited wine is only available as a pre-offer. It will be arriving and shipping from our warehouse in two weeks.]
That said, I don’t fault anyone for exercising caution in France’s Jura region. I’ll be the first to say that for every life-changing bottle that emerges from the hillside village of Arbois, it seems like there are a handful that disappoint. Still, there’s a shortlist of top producers who seem to have “cracked the code” and release outstanding, world-class wine every vintage. Houillon-Overnoy, Jacques Puffeney (recently retired; vines now leased by Domaine du Pélican), Jean-François Ganevat, Michel Gahier—these are names that sommeliers and collectors fight over every release, and we think it won’t be long until Les Matheny joins those ranks.
Commonly misunderstood as a mountainous region, the Jura is actually a narrow valley in the remote hills between Burgundy and Switzerland. Like Burgundy, it used to be a former sea. Walk through the vineyards and you’ll see bone-like chunks of limestone embedded in the soil, each from a different period: Bathonian, Bajocian, lower Jurassic. But unlike Burgundy, the Jura is nestled against the dramatic uplift of a mountain range by the same name. The roots of those mountains form the canyons, steep slopes, and valleys that traditionally necessitated a range of grape varieties to suit various microclimates and soil types. The Jura’s wines are subsequently shaped by their land, their soil, and the people’s intrinsic sense of regional pride.
Born and raised in Mathenay, Emeric Foléat and his wife, Elise, founded Les Matheny in 2007 after Emeric had completed a lengthy, eight-year tenure with Jura legend Jacques Puffeney. After converting an old farmhouse into a modest cellar absent of technology, Emeric went to work on crafting authentic, small-production wines without an agenda or formula. Today, nothing has changed: Only 3.5 hectares are farmed and the cuveés he produces are raised according to what nature provided him in that respective year, as well as his proclivity for spontaneity.
His 2016 Poulsard comes entirely from his sustainably farmed parcels in the esteemed village of Arbois and every cluster is harvested by hand. In the cellar, an indigenous-yeast fermentation is slowly carried out in old French casks and macerations can last up to three weeks. Following, the wine matured in these large weathered barrels until May of 2019—that’s about 30 months of aging—and was bottled without fining. During this extended stay in wood, the barrels were occasionally topped up according to Emeric’s tastes. Again, there is no systematic approach here; idiosyncratic, improvisational winemaking reigns supreme.
Given that last sentence, you’d think these wines may suffer from volatility and extreme bottle variation but we’ve found the exact opposite to be true. This is about as perfumed, pure, and hedonistic as Poulsard can get. After a quick 15-minute decant, the wine opens up gorgeously in a Burgundy stem and releases non-stop, high-toned perfumes until the final ounce is drained. It broadcasts plush notes of wild strawberry, cherry liqueur, ripe red and black plum, cranberry, crushed stones, forest floor, fresh herbs, tea leaves, orange peel, turned earth, soft spices, and dewy rose petals. Les Matheny’s 2016 instantly debunks Poulsard’s light-and-fun reputation: This is a wine with intense, broad, and exceedingly polished textures that explode with a seriously juicy red-fruited core. I cannot wait to explore this wine in the next 3-5 years but there’s simply no way to avoid pulling the cork on a few bottles now. It’s primed and dripping with dense, utterly refreshing layers that will have your taste buds screaming for more. This is the future of Jura!
