Les Vignerons de Yura Jurancon Sec 2023

Plaimont are focused on defending the foothills of the Pyrenées and this was a natural progression to move to Jurançon, where they now look after 34 hectares.  This is powerful and spicy with sweet lemon and yellow plum fruit, and a nice marmalade tang. It’s fresh and dry, but has a really interesting personality, especially on the finish with a bit of white pepper and nice citrus pith notes.

 

Plaimont have a thing about looking for disappeared (or nearly disappeared) grapes.  They are a large cooperative involving 600 winegrowing families, and specialize in Saint Mont (98% of the appellation is down to them), Madiran (50% of the appellation) and Pacherenc du Vic Bilh (60% of the appellation). They also make wine in Gascony, and more recently have been making Jurançon).

But they have used their resources well in indigenous varieties and have a special focus on older varieties that almost disappeared post-phylloxera. They have a conservatory of old varieties that is a historical monument – it was planted for the first time in 1830. They also have a Conservatoire Ampélographique, which they planted in 2002 in Pouydraguin. This collection has 20 or so vines each of 37 different vinifera varieties, one wild vinifera (V. sylvestris), and one tetraploid version of the Pinenc variety. From these vines, they make microvinifications each year. The results show that some varieties were rightly forgotten: they make low yields of very ordinary wines. But others show a lot of promise, and not least Tardif. This is one variety that will be making an appearance in the vineyards, because it makes lovely wines with moderate alcohol and a distinct pepperiness (from very high levels of a chemical called rotundone). Some of these varieties offer a solution for climate chaos, with maturity at very low potential alcohol.