A Master at Work:
Purity, Depth, Tension
2009 Ganevat Savagnin Chalasses
Marnes Bleues Ouillé
Today is our third Ganevat offering; he deserves the attention.
It's easy to go on and on about Ganevat.
However, we'll keep this oane short. If you'd like to know more about Ganevat, please look here.
What keeps us returning to Ganevat's wines is their compelling purity, their depth and their tension. Ganevat makes an almost bewildering number of cuvees - somewhere around 30-35 cuvees- and when you taste them its easy to justify (get excited about) each of them.
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Ganevat is an intense, uncompromising personality - it shows in the wines. I can't remember the last time that I've seen wines from an obscure region like the Jura capture the interest of long-time Burgundy collectors along with wine geeks in the way Ganevat has.
Today, we present Ganevat's Savagnin Chalasses Marnes Bleues Ouillé.
Every year, this is one of my favorite of Ganevat's wines. There's a combination of elegance and concentration that's really impressive. It's a wine that's rich, intense and at the same time light on its feet and invigorating.
It's also decidedly Jura; offering up notes of marmalade, lemon pith, mushrooms, moss, walnut, baking spices, and pure rocky minerality.
Ganevat's Savagnin vines are planted on blue marl (marnes bleues,) which is considered the best soil for Savagnin. As with all of his wines, Ganevat's Savagnin comes from very low yields and biodynamically farmed vines. It spends two years topped up (it's a non-oxidative wine) in old barrels and doesn't receive any sulphur.
Sulphur-free winemaking has in recent years gained a large following (some would just go ahead and call it a trend.) The truth is that it's some of the most difficult winemaking to engage in. Real success only comes to the most talented with close to perfect fruit.At its best, the wines have immediacy and clarity of expression that's mindblowing.
And this brings us back to Ganevat - his acuity, his unyielding skill. Needless to say, he exhibits much of what makes sulphur-free winemaking an important way to work.
And, beyond this, Ganevat reminds us of what's exciting about wine these days. A particularly insightful person can take some old vines in an obscure corner of the wine world, work exceedingly hard, produce world-class wine and have an appreciative audience.
The word on Ganevat is out. Last week's Poulsard offering sold out in four hours. Please give us your maximum order, and we'll do our best to allocate fairly.
To order, please email us offers@crushwineco.com or call the store at (212) 980-9463.
Joe Salamone
Wine Buyer
Crush Wine & Spirits