Côtes du Jura Pinot Noir Domaine Marie-Pierre Chevassu 2022

Marie-Pierre is a young vigneronne whose wines are definitely old style. She is one of the few female winemakers in the Jura. She took over her family’s wine estate in 2008 and manages her 4.5 hectares from vine to cellar door herself. Located in Château-Chalon, the most traditional part of the Jura, Marie-Pierre makes meticulous modern reds and whites. Her reds are carefully sorted at harvest and manually destemmed before going into CO2-filled tanks to avoid using SO2 at bottling. No oak is used, resulting in a deliciously full-fruit flavour with a touch of CO2 that disappears with some aeration. The whites are matured in old barrels using traditional Jura techniques.

Marie-Pierre’s husband, Cédric Fassenet, is a theatre director in Lons, but helps with tastings, and Marie-Pierre continues to receive help from her parents. However, she is very keen to keep the estate small, in particular so that she can take care of the vineyards personally, and everything is worked in a sustainable way. Marie-Pierre manually hoes 3ha of the vineyards but explains that, due to erosion of the steep slopes, there are some parcels in Château-Chalon where it is simply impossible to work without herbicide. She uses systemic treatments early and late in the season but is a keen member of the local group working in lutte raisonnée towards Terra Vitis certification. The atmospheric cellars at the farm are full of old wood from large foudres down to fûts and feuillettes.