Houillon-Overnoy

Thank you to importer Louis/Dressner for this estate profile.

Viticultural Jura is one of the smallest of all wine regions in France. Over 80 kilometers stretching North to South, on a ridge never more than five kilometers wide, the Jura has 1850 hectares of planted vines. This is down from 20,000 pre-phylloxera, when about 40 varieties were widely used. Now only five grapes are grown since the creation of the AOCs: the local grapes Trousseau and Poulsard for red wines and Savagnin for white, along with Burgundian grapes Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Chardonnay dominates the plantations, although there are many types of plants and  clones. The most interesting is called Melon à Queue Rouge, a strain developed locally which has reddish stems.

Pierre Overnoy’s father ran a 15 hectare farm of mixed agriculture in Pupillin, a village near Arbois. 2.65 ha of the land was vineyards, which Overnoy took over in 1968; he left the rest of the farming to his brother. From his beginnings, he tended his vines organically, known at the time as "traditional", i.e. without herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, nothing but copper and sulfur.  In his winemaking, he was a pioneer of what has come to be called natural wine, especially in his avoidance of the use of sulfur. The Jura, with its tradition of Vin Jaune, made in a slowly oxidative fashion, was probably ideally suited for these explorations. Jules Chauvet, the Beaujolais négociant and wine researcher, was a mentor and a friend to Pierre Overnoy since those early years. Overnoy’s goal was to make wines of terroir, which would reveal the minerality of their soils and the ripeness of their vintage. Stylistically, it was also a return to what his grandfather's wines tasted like.  Emmanuel Houillon, a kid from the nearby, vineless area of Franche-Comté (the region that comprises Jura), came to Pierre as an apprentice in the fall of 1990. A self admitted lost soul, Manu found his path working with Pierre. He'd alternate between school and working at the estate every two weeks. That lasted seven years, until he left school with a professional baccalauréat in viticulture and oenology. Overnoy then hired him as an employee, though by then the two had already formed an unbreakable relationship akin to father and son.  In 1995, while still a student, Houillon found 1/3 ha of Chardonnay vines which he tended himself. He also planted 1/2 ha of Chardonnay in 1998. That same year, the Overnoy estate grew by 2.5 ha of Poulsard and Savagnin when Pierre took over vines owned by his sister. The estate now consists of 2 ha of Ploussard (or Poulsard), 2 ha of Chardonnay and 2 ha of  Savagnin. 30 ares of Trousseau were planted in in 2013.  In 2001, at the age of 63, Pierre Overnoy retired. Emmanuel Houillon and his wife Anne have been fully at the helm since, with Pierre devoting much of his time to baking bread and enjoying the finer things in life. Still, he remains an everyday presence for the family and the estate.

Over the years Overnoy's reputation has skyrocketed to the point where the wines have become some of the rarest and sought after in the world. It's been strange to adapt: for a long time the wines were only popular amongst a small subset of restaurants and wine shops in France (and  probably Japan). There were early die-hard fans in the USA, but if you wanted to drink a bottle, chances are you could. Now the wines are fiercely guarded and "asking for Overnoy" is a daily faux pas made by inexperienced buyers and natural wine tourists on their first visit to Verre Volé or Cave Septime. When we started importing the estate in the early 2000's, the wines were considered wildly esoteric for the USA market and only a dedicated few would purchase them (shout out to Arnaud Erhart and David Lillie). We even had some restaurants pouring it by the glass!

But times have changed and the cat is definitely out of the bag. So with prices going up and the extreme scarcity (bad crops, less quantity, the wines frankly being underpriced for way too long), are these really worth all the hype? In our humble opinion: absolutely. Beyond the obvious Jura quirkiness, the estate is as singular as they come. Here are some of the reasons why.

The first and most impressive is the unwavering dedication to only releasing wine Manu and Pierre have deemed ready to drink. In the vast majority of cases, even the most iconic wineries in the world release vintages in a chronological, scheduled manner. At Overnoy you never know: multiple vintages of the same wine are often released years apart from different bottling dates, and we never know which cuvées or vintages we'll be offered. Furthermore, there are no set rules for how long the wine will age in wood or in bottle. Through regular tastings, Manu decides when the time is right to bottle and release each cuvée. And depending on the quantity and the quality of the grapes, often only a part of the vintage is bottled, letting the remainder evolve.

That means that the same vintage will often be bottled and released multiple times from different foudres that have each taken their own distinct paths. Realizing that this detail was getting lost in the mix, since 2018 the Houillon have begun adding the bottling date of each wine on their front labels. You can spot these on the lower right side to help identify the various bottlings of the same vintage. This fact is not made obvious in any way, you just need to know. It's part of the larger lore in the wines' cryptic nature: one must have all the clues to decipher their true identity.

With the exception of the Vin Jaune and Vin de Liqueur, all of the cuvées feature the exact same label. The only way to tell the difference is the color of the wax on the top of each bottle: white for Chardonnay, yellow for Savagnin, red for Ploussard. There exists a mythical green wax for the Chardonnay/Savagnin blend that has not been released in a very, very long time. Again, this has never been clearly explained or communicated other than word of mouth. Oh, and if it's a 50cl bottle, it's the Savagnin Ouillé.

Finally, despite insatiable demand, Manu has refused to grow the estate or buy grapes, all the while suffering through a decade of near inexistent crops due to climactic hardships. He feels that their current size is as much as he can handle to truly do everything top to bottom himself. He is not interested in becoming a négociant and will only produce what nature gives him. It's a noble philosophy that we admire and respect tremendously.

Unfortunately, with the increased global demand for  natural wine, bad crops and the very rare crossover between die-hard naturalistas and classic sommeliers clamoring for all they can get, a perfect storm ensued: we never have enough to satisfy even our best customers. It's also brought out some of the more unsavory sides of the world we work in: wine as a status symbol, grey marketing, price gouging...

It's too bad because these wines come from some of the hardest working, humble and generous people we have the pleasure to work with. They have no desire to be in the limelight, for the glitz and the glamour. In fact, they live a very private lifestyle. And despite the sharp increases in price in the last few vintages (which to be transparent we actually encouraged them to do), the Houillons live a simple farmer's existence selling the scant bottles they produce. At this point, all we can hope for is that the very little wine we receive each year (less than 400 bottles a year for the entire country) is enjoyed beyond the artifice of the superficial; we hope that these wines end up in the glasses of people that actually care for and understand the work that goes into each bottle.