Anyway, as we would be driving through the Jura (one of Wink's particular wine regions – she writes about it in Wine Report as well as on her website, Wine Travel Guides) we planned to make a few visits there.
I always enjoy the drive from Chinaillon to the Jura as to reach this region you can take the dramatic autoroute A40 high above Nantua and the lakes, aptly called L'Autoroute des Titans as you literally stride betwixt the mountains through tunnels and over high viaducts.
We arrived in the delightful little hamlet of La Combe just outside Rotalier to visit Domaine Ganevat.
We were ushered straight into one of Jean-François’ cellars where we started on a tasting of barrel samples of, first, his 2007 Chardonnays then to the next cellar to try some older vintages, still in cask.
Now we were joined by a couple of visitors; they’d dropped in just to buy some wine but were quickly brought up to speed with our tasting. Unfortunately they didn’t seem to be spitting, as we were doing so I don’t how they were going to feel the next day!
Another visitor was Jean-François’ dog, Oscar, who wanted to join in with his master, especially when it involved helping him to look for the bung that had escaped behind the barrels...
At 13.30 we completed our tasting. Jean-François Ganevat is an exciting winemaker producing a big range of good wines. He is one of the recommended wineries to visit in the ‘Around Lons-le-Saunier, Jura’ in Wine Travel Guides.Then we all went to lunch at La Maison de Revermont, on the outskirts of Beaufort, to give us sustenance before our next Jura visits...
