{"product_id":"grosjean-mas-du-jario-blanc-de-noir-extra-brut-2020","title":"Grosjean Mas du Jario Blanc de Noir Extra Brut 2020","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Land\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe slope is eighty percent. That is the gradient the estate lists for Tzeriat, the vineyard above the Via Francigena in the commune of Quart where this wine is grown, and it climbs from 800 meters to nearly 900 — Alpine altitude for viticulture, unremarkable in the Valle d'Aosta and eccentric almost anywhere else in Italy. The word jario turns up in a notarial document from the 1700s identifying this exact piece of ground. The soil is the sandy, stone-strewn material typical of the valley, and it is thin: less than fifty centimeters before rock. Exposure runs south to southwest, which is what makes a site this high workable at all. Grosjean's parcel here covers two-tenths of a hectare, trained to Guyot, planted in 2003 and extended in 2014. The Valle d'Aosta is the smallest wine region in Italy, and a plot like this explains most of the reason why.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Wine\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne hundred percent Pinot Noir, off a vineyard Grosjean has long used for its still red Pinot. For the sparkling wine the fruit comes in at the end of August, deliberately ahead of the general harvest, to hold the acidity a Blanc de Noir depends on. Whole clusters are pressed, the must is hyperoxidized, and the base wine ferments in stainless steel at low temperature, then rests on fine lees at five to seven degrees Celsius with weekly battonage. Second fermentation happens in January. The wine spends thirty-six months on the lees in bottle before disgorgement, and the dosage stays under three grams per liter, which is why the label reads extra brut and the wine drinks close to bone dry. Production is about 1,450 bottles. Pale in the glass; hawthorn blossom, apple and lemon on the nose with red fruit underneath and bread crust from the lees; then a finish that is chalky and salt-edged, more mineral than fruity. Weeding on the parcel is done by hand three times a year, manure goes down every five or six years, and copper and phosphate are the only disease treatments used.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe People\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Grosjeans came down from Fornet, a village high in the Valgrisenche, where the family raised cattle and grew grapes and chestnuts on the lower slopes each summer to lay in enough wine for the winter. In 1969, pushed by his friend Pino Albaney, Papa Dauphin bottled his own wine for the first time and carried it to the Second Aostan Wines Exhibition. His five sons — Vincent, Giorgio, Marco, Fernando and Eraldo — turned three thousand square meters of vines into a working estate, now sixteen hectares across Quart and Saint-Christophe producing roughly 140,000 bottles a year. The family stopped using insecticides in 1975 and has fertilized only with organic material since; in 2011 Grosjean became the first winery in the Valle d'Aosta to be certified organic. Herve Grosjean, winemaker and owner, has been making metodo classico since 2015, starting with a rosé, and Mas du Jario grew out of that work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFood Pairing\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAn extra brut this dry and this acidic exists to cut fat and meet salt. Lard d'Arnad on rye bread, the valley's own cured pork fat, is nearly a local ordinance: the bubble scrubs the fat and the acid resets the palate between bites. It handles fonduta valdostana, all melted Fontina, where the chalky finish slices dairy richness that would sink a rounder sparkling wine. Raw oysters or a plate of crudo work on salinity, the wine's mineral edge meeting brine rather than arguing with it. And anything fried, from arancini to fritto misto, comes out cleaner with every sip. Serve it cold, four to six degrees. This is what mountain sparkling wine tastes like when the vineyard is nearly vertical and there are only fourteen hundred bottles of it.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Natural","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51319566762207,"sku":null,"price":38.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0439\/7436\/1248\/files\/P9030249.jpg?v=1788538496","url":"https:\/\/denverwinemerchant.com\/products\/grosjean-mas-du-jario-blanc-de-noir-extra-brut-2020","provider":"Denver Wine Merchant","version":"1.0","type":"link"}