When it comes to grapes, size tends to matter.
The bigger the berry, the smaller the ratio of skin to juice. So given the majority of a wine’s colour and aroma hails from the skin, large grapes generally produce wines that are light in colour and lacking in flavour. But of course there’s an exception to every rule.
Like Philippe Bornard and his Ploussard.
Ploussard is a big-berried red grape variety grown only in the Jura. And true to form, Philippe’s wine is light in colour. In fact if you didn’t know otherwise, you’d be forgiven for taking one look at its orange/light brown hue and suspecting the wine may be past its best. In actual fact it has plenty of great drinking in front of it – another five years at least.
Start smelling and drinking the wine and the beauty of the variety in the hands of a talented producer like Bornard is revealed. A brilliant perfume and lifted cherry and red currants transport you out of the Jura and into Burgundy 100km to the east. But the Ploussard has a touch of white pepper that brings you back to its origins where the tendency to add whole bunches to the fermentation is more common.
The palate has a high acid tension and some gracefully dry tannins on an exceptionally long finish. It’s well worth getting your hands on a bottle of this wine to experience that lovely tussle between elegance and power.
:::ON:::
O = Organic: farming without the use of inputs that can have adverse effects. ‘Non-systemic’ fungicides and pesticides are used in place of ‘systemic’ chemicals said to enter the ‘blood’ of a plant (akin to antibiotics in the human world).
N = Natural: no additives or aids (eg yeast, yeast food, added acid/enzymes/tannin) bar a touch of sulphur during aging or before bottling, if any at all.