Domaine Labet Fleur de Savagnin ‘en chalasse’ Cotes du Jura 2012

I’ve tasted this wine before but was reminded how absolutely delicious it is when we had a bottle at lunch at Bell’s Diner in Bristol this week. (No I don’t spend my *entire* life there despite this article in the Guardian.)

It’s a blend of different types of savagnin - the Jura’s indigenous white grape which wine writer Wink Lorch, who has written an excellent book on the region, describes as tasting like a “fresh Meyer lemon”.

Given it had a couple of years maturation it wasn’t that tart but had just the right verve and attack to sail through an eclectic selection of small plates (its salinity made it particularly good with some salt cod croquetas (below) and a salad of salt cod, avocado and blood oranges). I was surprised to find it was nearly 14% (13.8%).

The estate is run organically and adheres to most of the tenets of natural winemaking - no fining or filtering and very little, if any sulphur. But the wine is beautifully clean and pure.

Infuriatingly I can’t find a retail stockist but it is imported into the UK by the excellent Vine Trail which supplies many other good restaurants including The Quality Chophouse and Texture in London so with luck you’ll run across it at some point. It costs £17.08 a bottle ex VAT

You can read Wink’s typically insightful piece about the Labet family on her website.