Anne et Jean-Francois Ganevat, Montferrand Chardonnay, Cotes du Jura 2018 - 75cl

Jean-Francois Ganevat farmed his family plots in the southern Jura for decades before his name became shorthand for what a Chardonnay from these limestone-and-marl slopes can do. Montferrand is his straight-talking cuvee, and in 2018 it comes from a hot, generous year on ground that usually runs cool. The wine keeps its nerve regardless.

Everything here is worked by hand and by conviction. The vineyards are certified biodynamic, the fermentation runs on wild yeasts, and the wine sits a long time on its lees in old wood, topped up so the barrels stay full and the fruit stays bright rather than turning nutty and oxidative in the older Jura manner. Sulphur is barely a whisper. What you get is Chardonnay with the volume turned up on texture.

The colour is a deep, glinting gold. On the nose there's orchard fruit and lemon oil, a lift of white blossom, then something more savoury underneath, warm brioche, crushed almond, a saline edge that pulls it back from richness. The palate is broad and lightly waxy, threaded through by the vintage's ripe fruit yet held taut by that mineral cut the Jura does so well. It finishes long, saline, a little wild.

Open this when you want a white with presence rather than politeness, a slow lunch that turns into a slow afternoon, or a bottle to argue over with someone who thinks they know Chardonnay.

How to Serve

Pour at around 12C, not colder, or you flatten the texture that makes it. Reach for a broad white-wine glass, and give young bottles half an hour in the decanter to shake off any reduction and open the aromatics.

Where to Drink It

Noble Rot in Bloomsbury, where a Ganevat on the list is entirely at home. Planque in Haggerston for the cellar-led, low-intervention crowd. Dandy for something loose and modern that suits the wine's edge.

Food Pairings

I'd put it with a roast chicken cooked in far too much butter, or a plate of Comte at the point where the cheese starts to crystallise.