Free Uncorked by Marco Pasanella

“yellow wine”). This sherry-like white couldn’t be further from the foresty and mysterious Pinot Noirs and crisp yet full Chardonnays for which Burgundy is famous. Made from a local varietal called Savagnin, vin jaune is created by putting the freshly pressed juice in small barrels that are then left to age. Unlike most wine, which is topped off in the barrel as it evaporates, the barrels containing future vin jaune are left to produce
voiles
(“veils”). This putrid-looking film is what gives the wine its distinctive—and some would say repulsive—taste: nutty and rich but at times disconcertingly similar to that jug of Pinot Grigio you left open a few months ago next to the stove. Even the bottle, a 620-milliliter (ml) flask called a
clavelin
(versus the normal 750-ml bottle used worldwide), screams “Vive la difference!” I can appreciate vin jaune, and I like it in small doses, preferably accompanied by astrong local Jura cheese such as Comté. But I respect this quirky creation more than I enjoy it.
    Tissot’s family has been in the Arbois for six generations, and one could imagine his weirdness is hardwired. Yet Stephane, mild-mannered, balding, wearing a check shirt and wire-rimmed glasses, didn’t look like a kook. When I asked about it, Tissot said that biodynamics was about thinking of the farm as a “living organism.” You cannot make great wines, he continued, without great soil. Recently, Stephane contended, there has been an overreliance on using technology to rescue inferior fruit. There are a lot of processes used in winemaking that can boost the flavor (“pumping,” by which the newly pressed juice is recirculated in vats to intensify the fermentation process), soften the bitterness (“malolactic fermentation,” which breaks down malic acid by adding another fermentation), or, when all else fails, make it as “buttery” as possible to hide a wine’s flaws (stick some oak chips in the barrel). Biodynamic winemakers, he explained, eschew chemicals and prefer to work their fields by hand. When he spoke of “crop rotation,” “sustainable farming,” “cover crops,” and “natural yeasts,” he had me nodding in agreement. According to the movement’s official certifying organization, called Demeter, biodynamic farming produces one of the smallest carbon footprints of any agricultural method.
    Biodynamic was starting to sound like organic plus—everything you love about organic and then some. My customers seem to agree. “Even Walmart has organic,” one regular pointed out. “Biodynamic,” she continued, “is more natural, better.” Sure, Tissot’s products cost a little more than other dessert wines (a half bottle retails for $47.99), but wasn’t it worth it for the greenest wine on the planet? So far so good, I thought.
    Tissot’s wine was also impressive. His pride, Spirale, is a sweet dessert liqueur. The production is similar to that used to make the traditional
vin passerillé
(literally, “straw wine”): hand-harvested grapes are dried on straw mats for several months, fermented for an entire year, then put in barrels to age for several more. It’s hard to argue with the results. Deep, caramelly, and unctuous; you don’t have to be a wine snob to want to finish the bottle.
    When we polished off the Spirale, I asked Stephane to expound further on the intricacies of the biodynamic way. I think he could see me smirk when he said that he preferred to pick under the full moon (naked, I suspected), but he quickly diffused my suspicion when he explained that the full moon exerts strong gravity on the plants, pulling the water up in the fruit, resulting in plumper “berries” (individual grapes).
    Yet it was hard to keep an open mind when he started detailing the making of chamomile sausages out of cows’ intestines and their burial at the fall equinox until they have amassed the proper “etheric and astral forces,” at which point the goop is disinterred. Likewise,