2019 Benedicte et Stephane Tissot Arbois Chardonnay Les Bruyeres

Stéphane Tissot is a tireless and vigorous promoter of individual sites and natural wines. He brings technological experience from his work in Australia and South Africa, and combines this with his ruthless yield reduction philosophy and very serious 'small batch' winemaking which is carried out as naturally as possible. Tissot plants mostly on clay and limestone, all sites are farmed biodynamically and yields are kept low, averaging only 30 h/l per hectare. Ferments are allowed to commence naturally and the still wines are bottled without filtration and little or no SO2 is added across the board. Vibrancy and fruit presence is a signature across all his wines. Given Stéphane is constantly experimenting and obsessively seeking improvements; he is at the forefront of the Jura revolution and produces terroir-driven wines of depth, intensity, interest and undeniable quality.

Les Bruyères is single south facing Arbois site planted on Triassic clay soils, with a rich vein of blue marl running through it. While the site is one of the warmest Stephane works with, the wines from here tend to maintain a firm backbone of structure and salinity that ensures harmony on the finish.

Other Reviews....
The 2019 Les Bruyères Chardonnay is flintier, more rustic, more reductive with the classical bitter twist in the finish. The Trias soils always seem to give this wine a spicy Jura twang, and 2019 was a good year for the clay soils. It should develop nicely in bottle. Drink 2024-2030.
94 points
Luis Gutiérrez - Wine Advocate (Jul 14, 2023)