Jean-Yves Peron

In the French Alps, nestled against the Italian border to the southeast, and not far from the Swiss border, is the home of one of my favorite winemakers around. Jean-Yves Peron is quick with a smile or a laugh - always with a twinkle in his eye that suggests an untold joke or great story he’s about to share.  And his wines are AMAZING! hard to find for sure but worth the search!

Thierry Allemand in Cornas and Bruno Schueller in Alsace-these two wine guru’s shaped Jean-Yves’ views on winemaking and offered some perspective to some of the more traditional methods he had learned at school.
His memories of the family’s holiday home in Chevaline combined with his desire to make a home in the mountains - viola, his path was set & he began making wine in the basement of the family home. With friends like Thierry & Bruno, he knew natural winemaking was the only way. Schueller had taught him experimentation is ok and long skin contact is interesting. So Making the choice to work with indigenous grapes was an easy one. Jacquere, Altesse, Muscat Blanc a Petits Grains, Mondeuse, Chassleas and even a little Persan - this revival of old varietals means he is able to work with very old vines that thrive on The terraced vineyards so steep it’s more like mountain climbing than walking through a vineyard.
It is stunningly beautiful!!

It has not always been an easy road - some years, he has lost everything due to weather. Luckily, the natural wine community is pretty awesome - friends rallied around him and he was able to make some wine from ‘borrowed’ grapes in those years.

When i taste a wine from Jean-yves, there is this distinct moment of clarity and wonder. It’s hard to wrap your brain around what your mouth is tasting and I often stand there swirling my glass pausing for the occasional sniff - waiting for my thoughts to come together around what I am tasting. These are not grapes we taste often so it can be challenging to remove the pre-conceived idea’s of what something should taste like….. to let pure wonder take you - to discover something utterly new is transformative and magical! There is definitely a paintbrush of familiarity that affects what I taste since I know him but it doesn’t make the wines any less strange, delightful, crazy and yes - magical. They shift and change EVERY SINGLE TIME! Often needing to shed their travel, these wines become better and better as they adjust to a new timezone - definitely drink them on a flower day if you can!

jean-yves makes a lot of different wines choosing to always be playful yet honoring the vineyards where his fruit comes from. These are two of my current fav’s!

‘La Tour Sarazine’ is Muscat Blanc a Petits Grains. Hand harvested from densely planted vines, the fermenting juice with the skins for 3 weeks, resulting in the gorgeously rich golden color. The resulting wine ages 1 year in cask on the lees (spent yeast that adds richness to the finished wine): the wine is removed from the lees and then relaxes 4 more months in tank before bottling.
Honeyed tangerine with ruby-red grapefruit oil that just sprayed across your face while you were peeling. All kinds of tropical notes like pineapple, star fruit & white flowers. Some hints of green apple, Bartlett Pear and tingly acidity balances with rich round mouthfeel - the finish is sooooo long!!

‘La Petite Robe’ is Jacquere. Hand-harvested from 40+ year old vines grown in limestone : food stomped (to avoid green tannins) fruit undergoes whole-cluster fermentation & skin-maceration for about a week. Pressed off and fermented in neutral barrels. As with most of Jean-Yves’ wine, the La Petite Robe changes with each season. He can’t even make it some years as frost kills the tender buds.Delicate and not overly aromatic on the nose yields to fresh, crunchy apple and crisp pear with mountain herbs and lemon pith. Bright white peach comes on just at the last sip and hints of something I can’t quite place. I want to drink this on my paddleboard with the sun beating down on me!!