Jura

The Jura is one of France’s smallest regions, about 2,000 hectares of Savagnin, Chardonnay, Poulsard and Trousseau on marl slopes below the limestone plateau. Its wines were a curiosity until the 2010s, when restaurants in Paris, New York and Tokyo made them fashionable; the best bottles now change hands at Burgundy prices while the land remains cheap, at about €50,000 a hectare.

Economics in brief

SAFER’s 2024 table puts Arbois at €50,000 a hectare (€30,000–65,000) and Château-Chalon, the vin jaune appellation, at €55,000. Those figures are low for the fame of the wines because the vineyard is small, hard to farm (hail and frost cost much of several recent crops) and held by families who rarely sell. Vin jaune itself is slow money: six years and three months in barrel before it can be sold.