Ladies and gentlemen, let me take you into a world of wine that is nearly upside down, a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory world of inside out and upside down wine formats that will intrigue and challenge your notion of wine as we know it. This world is the Jura region of eastern France, a tiny wine producing area that is little known beyond French borders. And, as my revealing reports will attempt to address, it is a region that is slowly emerging on the world stage and should be highly considered for your next trip instead of other more popular regions such as Burgundy or Bordeaux.    

I have increasingly become intrigued by a number of distinguished yet offbeat wine regions to visit and reveal, as a prime manifesto in service of this growing wine and travel blog, Highly Explorable. My personal philosophy has always been that what interest us is an extension of ourselves, and thus to eschew the most conventional tourist destinations, and basically go where no one goes. This blog will include popular destinations, but I hope to focus on lesser known pockets of the globe with amazing wine of the world (Uruguay is on the list).

After my exploratory ramble on over to Alsace a few years ago, I began to mentally drift a bit further south to the Jura. It is just such a delightful and highly qualifying follow up to continue with this core mission in place.

Chances are Jura is not blipping on your radar of imminently visitable places, for wine or otherwise. It sees a molecular fraction of the millions of tourists swelling the more classic French destinations every year. And yet it’s treasures of charm are very deep indeed.

Tucked in a tiny area of foothills between Burgundy and Switzerland, the wine villages of the Jura are picturesque, medieval, and seem almost created to order from the vision of quaint European charm. Although in close proximity to the Alps to the east, the Jura mountains are a separate geologic phenomenon, which also happens to be the origin of the geological “Jurassic” period between 200 and 145 million years ago. Jura claims a mere .3% of all the vineyards in France, or roughly 5,189 acres (2,100ha). And this is only a fraction of what area used to be planted in the 19th century.

Jura is the source of some of the most unusual styles of wine you might ever experience. The most legendary is Vin Jaune, a completely dry and complex elixir of golden and yellow tones made also in a highly oxidative style that seems to flout all the rules of winemaking.

You will also find Vin de Paille, a sweet dessert wine made from dried bunches, and Macvin, a fortified “wine” made from grape juice and distilled grape spirits.

Vineyards are spread out around the towns of Arbois, Lons-le-Saunier, Salins-le-Bains, Dole, Poligny, Chateau-Chalon, all about an hour northeast of Lyon, and an hour east/southeast of Dijon and Burgundy. A short hop to the east of Jura lies Switzerland.

The grapes of Jura include pinot noir and Chardonnay from it’s better known western neighbor Burgundy, but this is where any similarity ends. The other white grape is Savignin, which exclusively makes up Vin Jaune. Red grapes include Trousseau, and Poulsard, varieties that are more or less indigineous, but have certainly staked a firm and unique home in the Jura.

Jura is composed of five total AOCs, the regional Cotes-du-Jura, with three additional  specific appellations: Arbois, Chateau-Chalon, and l’Etoile. Jura is concentrated in a small region running mostly north and south around fairy tale wine and cheese hamlets like Arbois, Poligny, Besancon, Chateau-Chalon, Pupillin, and the spa resort town of Lons-le-Saunier. The famous Vin Jaune has it’s own AOC around the hamlet Chateau-Chalon.

Instead of creating a bottomless lecture on every detail of the region, I will leave it here for now. I can recommend an excellent book that is without a doubt the authority on the region, Jura Wine by Wink Lorch. Detail and education on this area is hard to come by online, and this book more than fills the gap. It has certainly served as my bible in learning about the area in depth.

At the moment I have about four tasting appointments set up in Jura: Domaine Pignier, Domaine Berthet-Bondet, Domaine Bourdy, and hopefully Domaine Maclé (no website), which I have not heard back from. I will obviously report on these visits in detail in due course. I am immensely looking forward to this trip, as I leave in two days.

The first half of the trip I will actually be in Lyon, sampling the culinary delicacies of the region, and visiting several producers of the Northern Rhone. So far it will be Domaines Rostaing and Gallet of Cote-Rotie, Domaine Sorrel of Tain-Hermitage, and Domaine Courbis of Cornas and St. Joseph.

Obviously I have not touched on this first stage of the Northern Rhone in this post, but those posts will emerge as well. The northern Rhone is of course the home of 100% French Syrah, and much of visits will be to producers that are scantly exported to the United States.

So excited! So please check back for these posts, though it will take some time to process these visits and put it all together. A bientot!