Benchmarking Greatness: 1990 • 1999 • 2000

A tasting masterclass with Overnoy, Butin, and L'Étoile, and the connection

to Samos terroir.

At the Christmas table, the "Private Cellar" is unlocked far from just to fill our glasses, but to nourish

our minds. This year, our table hosted three "giants" from the Jura. Three bottles spanning decades,

telling a story. Yet, to truly understand the Jura, one cannot simply speak of grapes.

One must talk about the forest.

The Sacred Triangle: Wood, Cheese, Wine

The Jura goes beyond being a vineyard. It is a region where the economy and tradition are inextricably intertwined with the forest. The people of Franche-Comté were not only winemakers;

They were also woodworkers.

The local firs and spruces (épicéa) provided not only the timber for homes and ageing barrels.

They offered—and still provide—the "home" for their famous cheeses. From the wooden boxes

of Mont d'Or to the thin spruce strips that surround the cheese, it is this local wood that allows

the cheese to breathe and mature, imparting aromas of resin and the forest floor.

This symbiosis is magical: Vin Jaune's fungus that inhabits the cellars and weaves the "veil" (voile)

It is a cousin to the microflora that ripens Comté cheese on the shelves of local spruce. In the Jura, wine, cheese, and wood all breathe the same air.

1990 Château l'Étoile (L'Étoile):

Before we lower our noses into the glass, let us recall where the world was positioned when these grapes were harvested.

1990 was a watershed year. It was the year Nelson Mandela walked free after 27 years of imprisonment, teaching humanity the ultimate lesson in endurance. It was the year Germany was reunited, and the year the human gaze changed forever: On April 24th, the Hubble Space Telescope was launched.

At that moment, Hubble was transmitting the first images of the stars of the universe.

At the Château l'Étoile, the roots of the vines were fighting their own battle deep within the earth.

A summer of historic heatwaves and drought was testing the endurance of the Jura.

While Tim Berners-Lee was creating the World Wide Web, accelerating time, this wine was entering the barrel to slow it. Today, 35 years later, we taste this contrast: The calmness of nature versus the velocity of history.

To truly understand this wine, we must first walk the soil of Château de l'Étoile. The iconic estate of the Vandelle family, who have been cultivating vines there since 1883. It is not simply a winery;

It is the guardian of the region. The Terroir of the Stars: The name L'Étoile conceals one of the most charming legends in the world of wine. The village took its name from the five small mountains surrounding it, which form a star shape, but primarily from its soil. The grey marl soils are teeming

with pentacrines—tiny, star-shaped fossils of sea lilies (crinoids) dating back millions of years

to when the sea covered the Jura. It is these "stars of the earth" that endow L'Étoile with its renowned elegance and minerality. The Method & The Weather: At an altitude of approximately 300-350 meters, Savagnin is cultivated with rigour.

To become Vin Jaune, the wine was aged in 228-litre oak barrels for 6 years and 3 months, without topping up (ouillage) and resting under a yeast veil (voile). However, 1990 was not a typical year. It was a year of a historic heatwave. The sun-drenched Jura yields grapes with immense sugar concentration

Château de l'Étoile has significantly lower acidity. The Tasting: Upon opening the bottle, the heatwave's impact was apparent. The nose served as a tribute to complexity: intense sotolon, curry, saffron,

and roasted hazelnut. Yet, the palate taught us a harsh lesson. The lack of acidity, due to the excessive heat of '90, left the wine without a "backbone." The nose and the palate had dissociated. Acidity seems

to be the passport to immortality.

This tasting acts as a strong reminder of why we focus so intensely on it in Samos. We strive to maintain and enhance this vital acidity through precise pruning and careful cultivation on our high-altitude terraces. It is a constant quest for equilibrium, guaranteeing our wines possess the structure to withstand time.

2000 Philippe Butin (Côtes du Jura): The Textbook Typicity

We travel a few kilometres to the humble village of Lavigny. Here we meet Philippe Butin,

an artisanal producer representing the "gentle fortitude" of the Jura. Unlike the grand châteaux,

Butin is the definition of a "Vigneron Indépendant": small production, devotion to tradition, and hands

that are always in the soil.

2000: The World in Millennium Fever. To appreciate this wine, we must recall the psychology of that year. 2000 was the year of Y2K (the Millennium Bug). The entire planet paused in anticipation, fearing that at the stroke of midnight on December 31st, computers would crash, and the digital world would come to a halt. It was the year the Dot-com bubble burst, but also the year human DNA was fully sequenced (the Human Genome Project).

While the world was in a state of technological hysteria, in Lavigny, Philippe Butin paid no mind to computer bugs. He trusted the only "software" that never crashes: nature. The summer of 2000

In the Jura, it was cool, lacking the extremes of 1990. Those conditions yielded grapes with an exceptional balance of sugars and acidity.

The gold "Clavelinage 2009" sticker on the neck of the bottle prepared us. The harshest critics

in the Jura have judged this wine as a "benchmark." In the glass, the difference from 1990 was evident. Here, we found not "dissociation," but absolute cohesion. Aromas of fresh walnut, wet stone, green apple (noble oxidation like), and a sharp salinity. A wine with nerve, standing tall 24 years later.

This wine teaches us the value of Typicity. Amid the chaos of technology and trends, remaining faithful to your region's character is the most significant innovation. We want our wines to be recognisable "children" of their land of Samos, just as this Côtes du Jura is a true child of Lavigny.

1999 Maison Pierre Overnoy (Arbois Pupillin): Pure Energy

We close this journey with a sense of awe. We transport ourselves to Pupillin, the "world capital of Ploussard," to meet a Vin Jaune from the man who changed the course of wine history:

Pierre Overnoy. It is not merely a winemaker; he is a philosopher of the earth. In an era when chemistry was the easy solution, he refused everything: no sulfites, no commercial yeasts, no filtration. He later passed the torch to Emmanuel Houillon, but in 1999, he was still the one "listening" to the breath

of the barrels.

1999 was the threshold of the 21st century. It was the year the Euro was born (in accounting terms), uniting the continent monetarily. It was the year The Matrix hit cinemas, making the world question what is real and what is artificial. And it was the year of the last total Solar Eclipse of the century in Europe. Nature went dark for a moment, reminding us who is truly in charge.

While the world lived in the uncertainty of the future, Overnoy was bottling the absolute truth. In the Jura, 1999 was a year of good ripeness but also variation. In the glass, this wine shattered every myth

that natural wines are prone to defects. Hazy, vibrant gold, like unfiltered light. Here, we do not speak of flavour, but of electricity. The wine vibrates. It possesses a silky texture that only the absence of sulfites can bestow. Aromas of orange peel, fresh almond, bread dough, and a sensation of Umami that fills the mouth. It is ethereal yet earthy all at once.

Overnoy teaches us that Non-Intervention is the most challenging art form. To add nothing, your grape must be perfect. Is the ultimate wager for me: To cultivate our vines with such care that in the winery, we need only "accompany" them, not "correct" them. Overnoy's 1999 is proof that nature, when trusted unquestioningly, performs miracles.