Legend in the Making: Jura's François Rousset-Martin

While Jean-François Ganevat and Stephane Tissot bridged many into the Jura (ourselves included), the name that has stirred us the most in the last few years is François Rousset-Martin. This 1,000-case annual production domaine was founded in 2007, but François has worked in wine his entire life. He began being imported a few years ago by Kermit Lynch––only Lynch's 2nd venture in Jura after Ganevat. When we first tasted the lineup, we were all blown away and immediately understood why Lynch waited decades to find a worthy addition to Ganevat.

 

Rousset-Martin follows a similarly natural-minded approach, but the wines show more consistency. While the intense characteristics we love about Jura whites come through loud and clear (faint nuttiness, exotic orchard fruits, superb finesse), there's also a buffering salinity and lighting nerve under the wines that give them the total package.

François works in the non-oxidative style, ouillé, meaning barrels are topped up, versus the oxidative sous voile style. From the top wine today, Vigne aux Dames Savagnin, to the four brilliant Chardonnay cuvées, to the mind trip of a wine that is "Aligatõ," these whites are masterful in their composure and graceful contours––they follow a Burgundian aesthetic that grew from François' youthful days spent alongside his father who was a microbiologist for the Hospices de Beaune.

 

The reds follow that same lean and silky frame that Ganevat introduced to us, but here, they are void of the volatile acidity and brett that can plague some bottles. These reds are clean and precise, with an intensity of fruit carried in a mid-weight package that makes them so easy to drink and with personality in spades. Cuvée 909 is the best Jura Pinot Noir I've had to date, and the Fleurie Poncié from one of the best vineyards in Beaujolais is a WOW wine in every sense that diverges from the region's other stars in its more linear focus that calls to mind his Burgundian roots.

 

François farms almost two dozen small parcels (a hectare or less) in Château-Chalon and Côtes du Jura. Like the rest of the Jura, the soils are abundant in clay, but limestone and marl represent the core of the domaine's terroir.

 

Wines are vinified parcel by parcel with little to no sulfur and bottled unfined and unfiltered. A natural approach in the cellar, with classic wines in bottle.