Ganevat Les Chanchons 2022

Les Chonchons 2022 – Anne et Jean-François Ganevat

Pale as a whisper and taut as a wire: Les Chonchons 2022 is Poulsard according to Ganevat, the most revered vigneron in the Jura.

Overview

Les Chonchons 2022 is a pure Poulsard made by Anne et Jean-François Ganevat, the estate in Rotalier, in the southern Jura, today an absolute reference point for French natural wine. It is a bright, featherlight red, the kind that overturns the very idea of “red wine”: pale colour, slender palate, a nose that drifts toward undergrowth and crunchy red fruit. An expression of the Côtes du Jura AOC, it is born from a rare, delicate native variety, vinified with the obsessive attention to detail that has made Ganevat a legend among sommeliers and collectors. It is a cult wine, produced in tiny quantities and highly sought after worldwide.

The story of the wine

Jean-François Ganevat descends from a line of Jura winegrowers active, according to the estate’s sources, as far back as 1650. After a formative stint in Burgundy, alongside Jean-Marc Morey, he returned to Rotalier to steer the family cellar toward a radical path of organics, biodynamics and minimal intervention. From that vision comes a galaxy of between 35 and 40 different cuvées every year, each with a bespoke élevage. Les Chonchons is his reading of Poulsard, the grape that symbolises the Jura: a wine built for drinkability and finesse rather than power, able to tell the story of its terroir without raising its voice.

Philosophy in the vineyard

In the vineyard Ganevat works organically and biodynamically, with very low yields and an almost obsessive care for the vine. Poulsard, a thin-skinned, lightly coloured variety, is famously fragile and prone to disease: it demands early harvesting, constant attention and a light hand. The grapes are picked by hand and rigorously sorted, because healthy Poulsard is the only possible base for a wine this transparent, where every flaw would show. The soils of the Sud Revermont, marl and limestone, give this grape tension, salinity and the fresh, autumnal profile that defines it. It is a viticulture that chases delicacy, not concentration.

Approach in the cellar and grape varieties

In the cellar, Ganevat’s rule is to take away, not to add. All the grapes are destemmed by hand, cluster by cluster, trimmed with scissors, a level of craftsmanship few in the world practise. Fermentations start spontaneously, with indigenous yeasts only, and each cuvée receives an individual, often lengthy, ageing. The variety is pure Poulsard (locally also called Ploussard), one of the Jura’s signature grapes. Ganevat is known for using minimal doses of sulfur, kept to the bare minimum and calibrated to each vintage, a choice that preserves the wine’s fruit and transparency. The result is a living, digestible red, deeply tied to its terroir.

Tasting notes

Colour: pale, diaphanous ruby red, almost translucent, with reflections fading into antique rose, typical of Poulsard.

Nose: delicate and refined, on redcurrant, wild strawberry and pomegranate, with hints of undergrowth, dried rose and an earthy note.

Palate: light, snappy and free of hard edges, with imperceptible tannins, crunchy red fruit and a savoury acidity that closes on a fresh, thirst-quenching finish.

Food pairings

A versatile, gastronomic wine, best served cool. It pairs with charcuterie and cured meats, white meats, poultry, lake fish and delicate dishes. It is a classic match for the cheeses of the Jura, above all Comté, and holds up well with autumnal dishes of mushrooms and squash. Its lightness also makes it perfect throughout a meal and with simpler cuisines.

Technical sheet

• Producer: Anne et Jean-François Ganevat (Domaine Ganevat, Rotalier)
• Appellation: Côtes du Jura AOC, France
• Type: Natural red wine
• Grapes: Pure Poulsard
• Farming: Organic and biodynamic
• Winemaking: Hand destemming, spontaneous fermentation, bespoke ageing, minimal sulfur
• Alcohol: 12% vol. (figure for the estate’s Côtes du Jura version; to be confirmed on the 2022 label)
• Serving temperature: 13–15 °C (recommended for this style of light red; not a producer figure)
• Sulfites: Contains sulfites

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Jean-François Ganevat (Domaine Ganevat)

Fourteen generations, just over a dozen hectares and more than forty different cuvées every year: Domaine Ganevat is the beating heart of natural wine in the Jura.

The story

Jean-François Ganevat, known to everyone as “Fanfan”, is the fourteenth generation of a winegrowing family rooted in Rotalier, in the hamlet of La Combe, in the southern Jura. The estate’s sources trace the family’s viticulture back to 1650, when grape-growing went hand in hand with a dairy that produced milk for Comté cheese until 1976. After years of apprenticeship at his father’s side, Jean-François trained at the oenology school in Beaune and became cellar master at one of Chassagne-Montrachet’s most prestigious estates, Jean-Marc Morey, in Burgundy. It was there that he developed his devotion to Chardonnay and to single-parcel winemaking. In 1998 he returned to the Jura to take over the family cellar, converting it to organics immediately and to biodynamics from 2006. Today he works alongside his sister Anne. In little more than two decades he has turned a small rural estate into one of the most revered names in the world for natural wine lovers.

Philosophy in the vineyard

Ganevat considers vineyard work by far the most important part of his craft, and proves it with almost obsessive numbers: one person per hectare to ensure that his biodynamic farming is carried out to perfection. The vines climb the marl and limestone slopes around La Combe, between 300 and 400 metres of altitude, on a mosaic of soils that shifts from one parcel to the next. Many vines are over fifty years old, some more than a century, with historic plots dating back to the early 1900s. No herbicides, no synthetic chemistry, extremely low yields and strictly manual harvesting. Alongside the Jura’s classic varieties, Chardonnay, Savagnin, Poulsard, Trousseau and Pinot Noir, Ganevat stubbornly safeguards dozens of almost-forgotten native grape varieties, such as Béclan, Enfariné and Portugais Bleu, rescuing them from extinction. Each parcel is tended and vinified separately, following a micro-terroir logic he brought back from Burgundy.

Approach in the cellar

In the cellar the rule is simple: intervene as little as possible and let the terroir speak. Fermentations start spontaneously, with indigenous yeasts only, and are famously long. For his Chardonnay and Savagnin whites, Ganevat favours the Burgundian “ouillage” style, with barrels kept constantly topped up, to bring luminosity and elegance where the Jura would choose oxidation, without entirely renouncing the traditional sous voile style. Ageing lasts two years or more in old demi-muids and neutral barrels, sometimes in amphorae or large casks. For his Pinot Noir, Trousseau and Poulsard reds, he destems completely and then ferments whole berries in the old way, with a carbonic-style maceration close to Beaujolais, before ageing in neutral wood. Sulfur is used in minimal doses, or none at all depending on the vintage, a choice that explains the purity, transparency and energy that make these wines instantly recognisable.

Style, cuvées and the négoce

The most disorienting trait of Ganevat is the sheer number of labels: often more than forty different cuvées every vintage, each with a precise identity. The domaine wines, with their two-part labels, come only from the oldest estate vineyards and culminate in icons such as Les Grands Teppes and Les Chalasses Vieilles Vignes, up to the legendary Les Vignes de Mon Père, a Savagnin aged for around ten years from vines his father planted in 1930, among the rarest and most expensive wines of the Jura. To defend against the frosts that regularly devastate the harvests, in 2013 Jean-François and Anne launched a négoce line under the name “Anne et Jean-François Ganevat”, with grapes leased or bought from growers in the Jura and other French regions, from Burgundy to Beaujolais and Alsace. It is this dual track, an extremely rare domaine alongside a more accessible négoce, that has made Ganevat a cult name on the wine lists of the world’s best restaurants.