MICHEL GAHIER: THE JURA'S UNDERSTATED PRODIGY

Gahier 'Vigne du Louis' Trousseau Arbois Rouge: This vineyard in Montigny has a northeast exposure which requires a harvest later than the other 'cru' reds. The vines are forty years old (as of 2011). Gahier likes this cuvée with about four or five years of age to it.

To everyone who's met him, Michel Gahier is among the most humble talents making wine in France. After years training under Jacques Puffeney, the world's premier Trousseau producer, Gahier began making his own wine. Gahier's best plots abut Puffeney's top vineyard, Les Berangers. And while Gahier farms Les Beranger too, he refused to label any of his wines with vineyards Puffeney farmed until very recently. Stylistically, Gahier inches towards modernity in the world's most staunchly traditional region. His whites are all oxidative and aged sous la voile to varying degrees, but with more frequent topping up, they come off as more controlled and elegant than their peers across Jura. His reds also show a touch more crispness in their fruit than his peers' wine, but still carry a nervy core of peaty minerality that so marks the traditional wines of Jura.
       Les Crets is Gahier's tamest and most delicate wine, showing bright yellow apple and meyer lemon alongside chamomile and nuts from sous voile ageing. La Faquette is the more muscular, overtly flor-age of the whites. Of his reds, Vigne de Louis and Lou both come from younger parcels of Trousseau, made in traditionally pale-red smokey and herbal styles. The deeper, more powerful Beranger is Gahier's stunning homage to his mentor, farmed from their shared vineyard and only bottled in magnum.