Ce ne sont plus des chardonnays, ce sont de grands blancs Jurassiens d’élevage long, partis pour une encore plus longue vie en bouteille ! … Derrière un abord plus lactique, Les Grands Teppes emporte le dégustateur dans un élan vigoureux, large mais surtout très droit, une allonge qui ne cesse de se tendre jusqu’en finale. 95 punten

The 2020 Les Grands Teppes Vieilles Vignes is, year in, year out, my favorite Chardonnay here. The vines were planted in 1919 on red marl and gravel soil. Like all the ouillé whites here, it fermented with indigenous yeasts and aged in neutral oak barrels for four years with the lees and will be bottled unfined, unfiltered and with no added sulfur. It has tantalizing aromas of tangerine peel and pollen, herbs, yeasts and cereals. It's a little creamy in this warm year and faintly marked by the élevage in oak. All the wines mature in a combination of barrels from different sizes, some 228-liter ones and larger foudres, some also in clay pots. Tasted as a sample from foudre, the oak is less noticeable, because when they age in smaller volumes with lees, the effect of the wood seems to be more noticeable. A component that might not make it into the bottled blend comes from younger vines Ganevat planted in 1986 when he was still working in Burgundy; it felt more Savagnin than Chardonnay, elegant and fine, with 13.6% to 13.7% alcohol, lighter and truly magnificent... But the blend is always better than the individual parts.