Always the greatest of Michel’s white wines, “La Fauquette” (from soils of marne bleu) spends four years in 400-liter barrels without being topped up. Despite the marked influence of the voile, however, it is the most elegant of Gahier’s whites: viscerally salty and rich, but with incredible finesse. It is truly amazing that Michel can express such purity and laser-focus in a wine of such wildness, and the well-aged examples of “La Fauquette” he has poured us over the years have been outrageous. Michel remarks that he seeks a veil signature that is more spice-driven than overtly nutty, adding that the blatant, terroir-dwarfing nuttiness found in some of the region’s sous-voile wines is often an indication of yeast inoculation. [Note: he labels this wine as “Melon”—a nod to the fact that his vines here are actually the local Jura mutation of Chardonnay known as “Melon à Queue Rouge.”]
